Wireless Adapter not Detected

Question

Hi.  I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a built in Intel a/b/g wireless adapter.  I recently came back from a business trip, turned on my computer, and now it's not even detecting the adapter in the system.  When I go to the device manager or even the network connections from the control panel, it doesn't even display the fact that an adapter exists!  The intel device manager states that 'no supported wireless adapters available in the system.'  Could the adapter been jarred loose?  It had been working fine for a year and a half before yesterday.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated!  Thanks so much!

bacillus · Answer

try using Fn+F2 to turn on the card if it's inadvertantly been switched off.

if you get no joy with that, look in bios to see if it detects the wireless card. if not detected then try reaseating the card before giving up on it.

volcano11 · Answer

You might also want to try checking to see if indeed the MiniPCI card wireless adapter has come loose:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins6000/en/sm/minipci0.htm#wp1009645

and try also to reinstall the drivers for the card:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/type.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=INS_PNT_6000&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=7039&libid=5

Steve

harvardosak · Answer

Thanks guys!  The problem was indeed a loose card.  Those links really helped out with disassemmbling the laptop.  It was the first time i ever did it and it went off without a hitch!

bacillus · Answer

well done...

ItsaKindofMagic · Answer

Thank you SOOOOO much, I was losing my mind trying to figure this out.  The Fn + F2 did the trick like magic.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

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