HELP!!! Wireless card not detected! CF-28

Okay... This will most likely be a fairly long post to let you know what I have done and what I am doing now...

I built a new CF-28 Toughbook. When I had everything installed, LAN/Modem card, wifi card, GPS, etc... I just took the hard drive from my personal laptop and stuck it into the new one to test the configuration. (Since Newegg hadn't delivered my new hard drives yet!) When it booted up... Everything looked fine except I noticed that I didn't have my wireless Internet. The laptop didn't even recognize it was installed. Since the setup is almost exactly the same I thought it was a little strange but passed it off to maybe it was a port conflict between the wifi and GPS. I have GPS in the new laptop where I haven't gotten around to installing it yet in my personal laptop. So... I didn't think that much about it.

The hard drives arrived this morning. I immediately installed one and loaded up WinXP. Now... I usually put everything in my laptops even though I know that XP won't have the driver for it... It will just show up as a yellow ? in Device Manager... Right? (Just like Hotkey, video, etc.) So I went ahead and installed XP and transferred all the UTB files I normally install after I load windows. The first thing I do (Obviously) is load the missing drivers. Well... The wifi card didn't show up. Neither did my GPS. (Where it did when I used the hard drive from the other laptop.) So... I started with the BIOS. I changed every conceivable setting... Nothing. I swapped the RAM, wifi card, etc to other ones I knew worked... Nothing. I tried the hardware wizard... Nothing. The DMI Viewer shows the Mini PCI slot as working and in use.
I then thought I had a mobo problem. I swapped the complete mobo with another one! (Yes... A MAJOR pain!) I was confident that this would definitely do it!... NOTHING!
I have disconnected both the GPS and the wifi card and I am reloading Win XP right now. The only other thing I can think of was that there was something fishy happening with XP install since it didn't know what to do with the GPS and the wifi card. (Though this has never happened before!) I should have it loaded in another 45 minutes or so.

Does ANYONE have ANY idea what the heck could be causing this issue? I have never seen this before. I have always loaded XP with the wifi card in. The only factor NOT common with all my other installs is that I had the GPS hooked up when I loaded XP but I can't imagine that had anything to do with it.

So... Any thoughts out there???

 

Check to make sure you didn't short out your 3.3V supply as it is this that the GPS and mini PCI cards would have in common.

 

It would be that way on both motherboards though...

 

My advice, is disconnect all option hardware first before installing windows xp then after the installation install all of its drivers and utility. After that, connect all the option hardware and their respective driver utility. That way, xp can identify all ad on peripheral if it is detected or if there are some problem with the hardware or software.

 

That is what I did... I just reinstalled XP with everything (other than the LAN card which XP knows) disconnected. Still no dice. I'll try swapping the LAN card for the wifi card and see what is going on. DMI shows both are functioning. The wifi card works in another laptop as does the GPS...

 

All it would take is a millisecond to blow both motherboards or maybe a fuse if your short is in the GPS mod/RIM board or whatever you are using. Just check with a meter if you have that voltage to power the GPS, if not there then that is your problem.

 

It finds the wifi card when I switch it to the first slot... The LAN card I have is too big to even try in the other slot so I can't even try to swap that in. The DMI viewer shows that it is getting voltage... Supposedly. I really don't want to swap another mobo in.... sheesh!

Any other ideas?

 

I found the problem..... Dangit! It was a bad LAN/Modem card!!!!! I'll try swapping in a new one of those and try again. The wifi card software is loading now!

Whooooppppeeeeee

I can't believe I didn't check that before swapping motherboards!

 

Okay... I still don't have GPS. I noticed that the BIOS was version 2.10 so I flashed it to Ver. 2.13 thinking that may be it.

Anyone have any ideas?

EDIT: I found the reason... A grounded GPS antenna lead.