Wireless Adapter not working

Not sure if I installed a driver incorrectly, but I had to reinstall my OS on a M17X R4. It has the Killer N network card. Whenever I press the wireless button on the laptop, it'll turn on bluetooth, but not the wireless...

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

Did you install the wireless card driver from off the dell site? If not, that's the issue right there. Install it and you should be good to go.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

I have installed the driver. I'll re-install it and see if that does anything, but i was pretty sure I had already tried that. Once more, here we go.

 

Just as I thought, I had installed the drivers. I re-installed them, and still having the issue. I go to the wireless options in Windows and enable the device but still can't get a connection to anything, or see anything. The diagnostics that Windows runs tells me that a Radio Switch is turned off. Is there a physical switch on the adapter that I would need to switch? The computer was taken apart to install a new motherboard....could that have been the issue?

 

I'm wondering now could it be the software that controls the button that I didn't install or something? What is the software that is used for the buttons on the M17x R4? Buttons, meaning the ones located above keyboard in the upper right side...

 

That button is controlled bios level. Check the bios and see if there is an option to change what that button affects. I currently have an XPS 17 that has such an option and it can be changed so it doesn't affect WLAN.

 

Just went through the BIOS. Made sure everything was enabled...still no dice. My thought process is now starting to go to if the motherboard is bad...could that be a possibility?

 

Update on this, just in case someone has a similar issue now or in the future.

Went through an hour plus on the phone with technical support (which I HATE doing due to the MILES AND MILES of red tape Dell puts in place to screw a person over), took the whole laptop apart. Could find nothing out of the ordinary. Even spent an hour with QualComm and still nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Finally, tech just ruled it was the replaced motherboard and is shipping a new one plus another network card. Who does the QA for dell? You would think they would do a better job checking their equipment to mitigate costs...

We'll see what happens with an updated mobo hopefully on Saturday. That is, if WWTS actually sends a tech like Dell promises they will or as fast as they promise...

 

That is why Dell tries to send all tech support calls to India even though Alienware support is in Latin/South America. It is cheaper to spend four hours on the phone with a rep from India than to spend just one hour on the phone with an Alienware rep from Costa Rica.

Back to your issue: If pressing the wireless button turns the bluetooth on/off, then the issue is not with OSD/Alienware Command Center because if the software detects a wireless card, it will enable/disable it...but even disabled it will still show up in device manager (or at least that's how it happens with my R2). And if it is enabled in the BIOS, then the motherboard is recognizing it otherwise the option would not be available. Only other thing I can think of is the BIOS has gotten all screwy, but your having the motherboard and wifi card replaced so that should rule out any problems with those items.

 

Thankfully on one of my calls, the rep gave me a direct number to the Latin America center in Costa Rica. It's a bit less of a wait, and I can actually understand a Spanish accent more than an Indian accent. So I hope my calls rack up their bill (which is easily replaced in the thousands of units sold in any given second).

Yeah, that's what my thought was: if bluetooth is working then it can't be software. I did flash the BIOS when installing drivers...but that was through the Dell drivers site (probably a mistake that I did that). Possibly a new flash could fix the problem?

Radji, do you have a recommendation off the top of your head for what BIOS version to flash to? (Noob when it comes to the BIOS. I can barely get in it half the time )

 

IIRC, A05 should be the latest and greatest version for the R4.

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

Take a look thru this thread to see if there are any lingering issues with the A05 version.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/678075-alienware-m17x-r4-a05-bios-released.html

 

Cool thanks. I think I'll hit the sack tonight and play with it tomorrow

 

Have you checked your adapter settings? is the wireless adapter enabled?

You need to install both the Ethernet and the Killer Card drivers for the wireless connection to work.

 

I've heard of antivirus software and certain windows updates causing this to occur.

 

@Luis_Pardo, Wireless adapter is enabled. Both ethernet and kill card drivers are installed.

@Alpine, Yeah with McAfee, but I don't use that.

I reflashed the BIOS and still nothing.

 

I know this is an old thread but my friend experienced the exact same issue as the op and read this thread hoping for an answer.

He phoned Dell and after a couple of hours of tedious troubleshooting, the technician decided the Killer WiFi card was faulty after being told numerous times it was simply a driver issue. The killer card was sent out to him to be replaced. He had previously tried everything including clean install of Windows and even resetting the card by taking it out and putting it back in. He also couldn't install the BigFoot software as upon installing, an error would present itself with a message saying the hardware could not be found. Strangely, the card could be seen in Device Manager albeit with an exclamation mark (wireless controller was its identity).

Anyway, the card arrived yesterday, he installed it in the laptop himself, then attempted to install the software which completed successfully unlike before so had confidence the new card would function.. The card now works and he has Wi-Fi. A difficult one to sort so thought I'd post his experience for anyone with the same problem, and I obviously hope the op managed to sort his own issue out.