Hardware failure?

Hey guys! So I have a compaq presario f700 and I got it in november of 2007. Anyways today I was surfing the web when all the sudden in lost the internet connection. The little orange light next to the switch was on but the switch was turned on. it would not find any wireless networks so I reinstalled the wireless driver from the recovery program and it worked for like 10 minutes, then the orange light came back on and I lost internet connection. Anyways I have reinstalled windows twice now and I still cannot get the computer to find any wireless connections and the blue light will not come on, it stays orange. Is this a software problem or did my broadcomm wireless hardware thing take a crap? Thanks guys! Sorry if it is hard to read I am typing this from my droid.

 

Touch the bottom or around where your wifi card is. Is it hot?

It may caused by the heat and it will shuts off the wifi. This happened to the HDX laptop as well.

I have no issue here. Firmware updates?

 

Where is the chip? Out of the two years I've had the computer it has never done this, its also been a few hours so I think it should have cooled down by now. Also like I said I was browsing the internet when it did this, I was not doing any updates.

 

Probably yet another fried NVIDIA northbridge chip, GeForce 7000 in your case. Wireless failure is an early symptom. Eventually the notebook won't boot up at all.

 

Can this chip be replaced? If so, how do I replace it? Thank you! Also, The model number is Compaq Presario F730US. s/n:CNF7380MHH p/n:GR967UA#ABA. I just did the computer checkup in the recovery manager but it said nothing was wrong. It seems as though the Broadcom wireless software is not even installed on the computer. If I go into the control panel and then click on network and internet I will try to click on the HP wireless assistant but nothing happens, it will not bring up the program. Also when I go into the device manager and click on network adapters it only shows the NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller but it doesnt show the broadcom wireless software. If I go to the broadcom file in the program files, I can run the .exe application and it says that it installed but it doesnt show anywhere that it has installed..........

 

usually on these ones, when the wireless goes, its a board problem (this motherboard is one of the ones that has the problem with the Nvidia GPU, also causes the traces for the mini-PCIe slot where the WLAN card is to go) you have WLAN problems, artifacting/boot issues/crashing of the Nvidia Video driver, then the GPU fails and all you get are lights when you try to boot the thing up. Wish I had better news for you but there it is. The HP Wireless assistant won't open because it does not detect the wireless on the PC. Double check weather the card is there in device manager as well.

 

The chip is surface mounted to the motherboard. It takes specialized gear to replace the chip, but you can hit the chip with a heat gun or even "bake" the motherboard in an oven to get it working again for a little while. See this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4792475&postcount=15
from that point forward.