G50Vt Wifi woes

So my brother gave me his old G50Vt since he no longer needs it, but for some reason the internal Wifi refuses to work. I did a full recovery, nothing. Updated drivers, nothing. Clean wipe to Windows 7, still nothing.

I'm thinking that the card itself may have some issues. Its an Intel 5100 agn. The card shows up in device manager, but it refuses to see any wireless networks in the area...at all...even when placed within 2 feet of one.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Otherwise, does anyone know what upgrades I can put into it to replace this card? I know the 5300 is an option, but is anything better available that would work in this laptop?

 

Have you tried pressing Fn+F2?

 

I've had this issue. There are three place to enable/disable the card. THe manual switch on the front left of the unit, the key combination of Fn+F2 and in software in the device manager.

One of the two hardware methods are usually the cause. Make sure all the drivers are loaded so that the visual display works in Windows as you toggle the various methods. Start with the switch on the front. Make sure it is set to on (in the right most position). With Windows active use Fn+F2 to toggle WiFi on/off. The little graphic should appear on the screen indicating WiFi ON or OFF. Sometimes the systems gets confused and no matter what you do it says OFF. Trying different combinations of the physical switch and the Fn+F2 usually gets it working for me.

Good luck.

Cheers,

 

This exactly, mine turns on on off, takes some time to recognize it and turn on, but try different combination and wait some time.

 

Already tried all of these options, none work.

The switch on the front is set to on, Fn+F2 has been pressed to ensure that the wifi is set to "on" and the device manager itself shows the card as active and working correctly.

The wifi does not work in Vista OR Windows 7. Both report a problem with not being able to find any wifi networks in range.

Also still looking for a possible replacement card for this. So far it looks like my best bet is the Intel 5300. Does the G50Vt support half mini cards or only the full size ones? If it does support, would the Intel 6300 be an option?

 

Have you checked in Expressgate to eliminate OS issues?

 

Expressgate can't find wifi connections either. It more or less locks up when attempting to find them. I'm pretty sure its something wrong with the card...

 

Perhaps this is what you need.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Laptop-mini-INt...ultDomain_0?hash=item3caa50111a#ht_691wt_1167

 

Yes, similar but the G50Vt has a Mini PCIe. I went to the local shop yesterday and bought an (unfortunately) worse card, but one that actually works. Plugged it into the laptop and it was working great in minutes.

Problem solved, fried card.

 

Did you ever resolve this? Mine has a similar issue after installing a USB cellular WAN key and for the life of me I can't solve it.

Re-installed Intel drivers
Re-installed ASUS' craptacular Wireless console utility
Repair install ASUS' ATK hotkeys functions

Still no good....