Studio owners: please press your wifi catcher!

Hello chaps,

I've got a question about the wi-fi catcher on my new dell studio.
I've searched on these boards but not found any thread that matches my question.

My new dell studio is great, wifi works well, picks up my home network with ease.
The catcher correctly launches the wifi signal search box when windows is running BUT
When the laptop is switched off, the wifi catcher should still work. Something like:

10 flashes, then stays on - wireless network available.

Not illuminated - no networks available.

When I press mine, with the power off, it always flashes 3 times, then does nothing.
What do other studio owners' wifi catcher buttons do (from the point of view of
illumination) when pressed with the power off please?

Thanks.

 

With the power off, mine will flash three times and then stay illuminated for a brief period to let you know a wireless network is in range. My light never stays illuminated unless the laptop is powered on, though.

 

it's suppose to light up? holy crap! mine doesn't light up at all no matter how and when i press it!

 

Yeah, it most definitely lights up. You may want to contact Dell if you're concerned about it.

 

yeah i should, i didn't know my laptop could do that.. alright, contacting Dell tomorrow

 

what do u mean wi-fi catcher? Is it the slider switch on the left? That can't glow. I do get a lit up "WI-FI" on the top area next to the touch sensitive buttons, is that what you mean?

If yes, than its surely off all the time if the laptop is "shutdown" (the only touch button that can work during power off is the MD4 home), isn't it??

 

it's none of those, the wifi catcher is the button above the slider switch (at the hinge).... on the opposite side of the power button.. as in, power button on the right side, wifi catcher button on the left side

 

For all the wifi catcher technical info check out this link (direct from dell.com)

 

^^Wow, Sebastien....thanks for the info...never read that part of the manual, I guess....It works .....LOL (all this time I thought that there are two Power buttons in Studio)

Although I am still not very clear of the use case. Why would u want to know of wi fi networks in a shutdown computer?

 

So you don't have to power it up to find out if you can go online. An awesome idea, IMO.

 

Well let's say you're on a university campus and need to use the internet but your not sure if your location is a wifi spot... You would use the wifi catcher to see if there is a wifi connection. Pretty much instead of booting up windows and all that fancy stuff just to have to turn if off when you can't connect.

 

Mine consistentlyflashes 3 times then does nothing. Its either a) broken or b) cannot find any available networks.
The catcher finds other networks when windows is running, such as my neighbours' network, but they are all secured and hence not available.
Maybe it will flash correctly when it finds public, free networks, such as coffee shops etc.
May be a while until I get the chance though.
Strangely, even though its paired with my home network, the offline catcher does not find it.

 

do you not have to have the dell quickset installed for it to work properly?

 

Yes, it is enabled in quickset. Quickset does not offer low level options such as flashing behavious etc, simply catcher on or off.

 

my button doesn't even do anything when the laptop is on - let alone off!!!

 

Make sure your wi-fi button is switched to the 'on' position, otherwise the catcher button will do nothing.

 

ok when i press mine and the computer is turned off it works fine but if the computer is on nothing happens...no lights no nothing...what should i do?

 

You'll configure those, oddly enough, in the BIOS. Found that out on my D630

 

Mine too. I have a two month old Dell 17 Studio. The button works when the computer is on, but it never lights up. And it doesn't do anything when the computer is off.

I think I'll reinstall driver. Since buying it I've had to remove and reinstall three drivers:
sound card driver
card reader driver
tv tuner card driver.

I had problems with all three. Reinstalling drivers has fixed all three problems.

 

I tried pressing the catcher when my laptop is off. All it does is that it blinks for 3 times and that's it. I tried it in my university where there are unsecured wireless networks too but to no avail. Am I missing something here? I installed Quickset and configured it properly but it still isn't working. Thanks.

 

Even I am not clear with the usage of the button !!At leasts when i treid mine ,in power On condition nothing happened but within the system it was showing that networks were being scanned....
Can Anyone tell what exactly should happen in power on as well as off conditions ??

 

Thanks to ton all you guyz, thanks to this thread I finally got to know how to use the WIFI Catcher button (the one in the hinge) I thought it wasnt working since whenever I pressed it while the pc was on it never lit up.Shut down the lappy and tried pressing and it came to life

 

You need dell quickset to make the keyboard shortcuts and wifi catcher do anything while you're in Windows Vista. You rcomputer probably already comes with it, but you have to go to support.dell.com, find dell quickset, uninstall quickset on your computer, then restart, and install quickset from the dell site. Then it'll work.

 

Kind of annoying that when you press it with Windows open, the app that pops up won't actually allow you to CONNECT to the networks from it. You still have to click the button to open the wireless app to then connect. Seems like a waste from within Windows. Didn't know about its powered-off abilities, though, which seem pretty cool.