Wireless acting Up in a Pavilion, help before I wander into internetlessness!

Hello. About a week ago, I booted my computer to find that the led light that indicates activity on the wireless didn't turn blue, and of course, there was not a wireless connection nor a way to set up one. I checked the device manager and found no problems, then checked out the HP Wireless Assistant. Puzzlingly, the assistant reported the wireless as on and without any problem, so I fired the command line unity (wireless.exe). It adviced to make sure that the switch of the wireless was on, and that the wireless was activated in the BIOS, so I rebooted and pressed f10. Nowehre in the BIOS could I find any kind of option about the wireless, so I just rebooted normally, and lo, the wireless was back. I thought that I had unadvertedly fixed it in the BIOS and let it be.

Fast forward a few days, I got the same problem when I booted up the ol' laptop, so I just rebooted, entered the BIOS again, and rebooted back. This time it didn't work out so I just rebooted the computer twice, and it was fixed. Since my job relies so much on the internet, I decided just to suspend my machine after use instead shutting it down, to avoid a new booting up into wirlessness; but yesterday, when I woke it back from suspension, the wireless was dead again! It took me no less than 7 reboots to make it start up again. Now I'm really paranoid that next time it happens, there will be no return, so Im keeping the computer on, 24/7 until I get some help, so please help me out!

The computer is a Pavilion Entertainment PC Special Edition with an AMD Turion 64x2, 2 Gbs of RAM and Windows XP. I've had it for one year and a half without trouble until now.

 

LOL, internetlessness...

No idea but good luck.

 

If it's a dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 series machine my first suspicion would be that the NVIDIA chipset is starting to fail:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01087277
But if the wireless card is still showing up in Device Manager then it's possible that there's a software problem. I don't know what that would be though.

 

Had the same problem with my DV9500... on the phone for HOURS with HP with no solution and had to mail it in for warranty service and they replaced the motherboard.

Flash forward to a month ago... I bought an HP DV7t from Best Buy and afterwards decided that I shouldn't have gone with the "high end" model and wanted to exchange it. I read over their return policy and found out I would incur a 15% restocking fee.... hhhmmmm.... I decided to open up the bottom of the laptop and disconnect the antennas for the wireless card and claim the laptop was defective. Simple solution.. and I enjoyed watching GeekSquad try to update the driver repeatively to ensure that I pay for daring to exchage a laptop ... I divert from my point... After I disconnected the antennas, there were no reported problems in the device manager and the wireless card was detected, just couldn't connect or find any networks. Can't remember if the light was red or not. This is a long shot, but check the connection to your antenna to your wireless card (and if you want to, I believe there's another connection in the monitor housing). Hope you get this resolved!!!

 

Yep, this seems to be it, since the wireless is not showing in the device manager either... and I just realized/remembered that my laptop is a refurbished one. My laptop is a dv6000 and it's elegible for the warranty enhancement, but I don't know if being refurbished is gonna be a problem. Also, I'm living in Australia, so the shipment + fixing time would probably mean I'd be without a computer for a month or so, which I cannot afford, dagnabit.

Normally, I'd panic at the thought of opening up my laptop, but I'm afraid I have no choice left. So, could you please, be a lil more specific about desconnecting these antennas? Thanks a lot.

 

Update: perusing the HP forums, I found that people with my same problem solved it by reinstalling the Wireless LAN Driver. Since it needs a reboot, wish me luck.

 

Good luck.........

 

Hopefully reinstalling the driver works... if not check this site out: http://h20181.www2.hp.com/plmcontent/NACSC/SML/
I would just pick the DV6000 if the HDX16t isn't listed. The antennas in the monitor mounting would be the ones I would worry about... I would cringe at the thought of doing ANYTHING to an LCD. The actual wireless card is located underneath the lappy... Go to the webpage and select: Notebooks & Tablet PCs > HP Pavilion Notebook PCs > HP Pavilion DV6000 (Intel) > FRU Remove & Replace --> Wireless LAN Minicard.... VERY easy to get to.

 

I would tell you to reinstall the driver as well, the HP wi fi assistant is (IMO) useless, you can use windows to tell you the status of the fi fi and BT connections, and it does not control the light. I have a DV&-1240us, and can tell you from an install of win 7 that this is true, win 7 found the wi fi and ethernet network controllers ok, and they functioned, but the wi fi light on the touch strip stayed red, that is until I installed the Atheros driver (for vista x64). then the light functioned as well.

If it isn't a loose connection or the card going, which you can still look at, I'd go for a driver reinstall first.

 

Well, so far, so good, after the installation of the driver, I've booted up twice without problem. However I do not dare to claim victory yet. I'll update in case things go wrong again. Till then, thanks so much to everyone!

 

Yep, as I feared, today it happened again, and this time took me more than 30 reboots to get it back. So open up the ol' laptop is next (when I have again the luxury to risk again internetless for a long time.)

Now I'm wondering about my options. Are there external wireless adapters that I can purchase cheaply? Or would it be a better idea to try and find a replacement for the internal one and install it myself. Or *shudder* should I just get resignated and send it to a "specialized" repair shop, so they can snoop around all my personal data and eventually fix it?

 

Given the reliability of laptops, why don't you get a cheap backup computer or a netbook if you need to be on the internet so much. I have a 7 year old dell desktop that still kicks @ss, a $400 back up notebook I got on special new, a netbook, and my HDX16 is coming. I make my money online and its vital for me to be online at least 4 hours a day.

 

yeah, I guess that could be too... a cheap laptop just for internet connection. What do you mean exactly with "netbook"?

 

Those are cheap laptops usually with a 10 inch screen or smaller and cost less than $400. Its main purpose is just to browse the net, as its too weak to do anything else. Hence is called "net book". That ASUS in my sig is a great one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook