I have one of those laptops with a stupid wifi switch on it

November 11, 2009 3:40 PM

I have the internet switch turned on on my laptop but windows says my internet switch is off. How do i turn my internet switch on?

I own a Toughbook CF-52 running SP2 and it comes with a stupid manual internet switch on it.

one day, my wifi refuses to work and i get messages like these from my wifi connector wizard thing and my wifi switch software version thing. neither application allows me to turn the wifi on even though they're both telling me the wifi is off. i've checked my wificard in the device manager and it's enabled and everything. what do i do?

posted by defmute to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I don't know what it is necessarily, but to separate the issues:

Your hardware (the WiFi radio) is clearly on.

The third link is just a difference in the 802.11 spec; you have the option of turning on 802.11a or not – this is probably just for interference issues (with devices on the network that are incompatible).

On computers, 'one day' is rarely just that. Did you install/reset anything?

In the Control Panel>Networks, is the wireless network enabled?
posted by mhz at 4:06 PM on November 11, 2009

Sounds like a driver upgrade has possibly failed. In the device manager for your wifi card, under drivers, see if you have the option to roll back to a previous driver.
posted by Sparx at 4:08 PM on November 11, 2009

My internal WiFi stopped working one day, on my 2-year-old laptop. I bought a USB-powered adapter. Now I have WiFi again. A PITA, but cheaper than a new laptop.
posted by megatherium at 5:15 PM on November 11, 2009

Go into the Network Settings in the Control Panel to see if the wifi card is disabled there. This has been the case for me many-a-time.
posted by DonSlice at 5:18 PM on November 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

I had a family member with a Dell laptop that also had an internet switch. Turns out the switch was broken. (I hope that's not the case for you, because it was pretty pricey to fix - it basically totaled her laptop.)
posted by ErikaB at 5:23 PM on November 11, 2009

i checked the network settings in control panel and the card is definitely enabled. i'm thinking i might have to just go with megatherium's answer and buy one of those.
posted by defmute at 5:44 PM on November 11, 2009

It's a bit weird; the software seems to be saying that it's on and off simultaneously.

Can you check the advanced settings of both the Intel app and the Windows wireless settings, and see if there's a conflict in which one is meant to handle the wifi networking?
posted by mhz at 6:44 PM on November 11, 2009

Check the BIOS settings to make sure that somehow it didn't get disabled there. It looks like this is a Win machine so you could go into device manager and uninstall the wireless adapter, then reboot and let it reinstall. If not detected by the PnP wizard it may indicate a hardware issue.
posted by white_devil at 7:47 PM on November 11, 2009