Windows 7 and the unseen wireless router

February 16, 2013 6:47 AM

I've been blessed with the task of finding out why my father's windows 7 laptop can't connect to his new Virgin Media Broadband router. The laptop can't find the router, and I can't find a fix...

The broadband router is newly installed, the laptop less than a few months old, but it seems like the laptop can't find any wireless networks whatsoever. A lot of the suggestions and fixes involve changing the router's security or downloading drivers, but obviously the laptop can't connect, and I'll be damned if I know how to mess with the Virgin box, as my own is much different.

As I'm posting this at his place, I can verify that the router works fine; another laptop in the house can also connect easily with just the SSID. The fault must lie with the laptop/operating system but... For once, I'm stumped. Any ideas on how to get W7 to detect the wireless router? I should hopefully be able to progress from there.

posted by Inner Universe to computers & internet (4 answers total)

Seems silly, but it's a gotcha that burns people time and time again: if you can't see any networks at all, make sure there isn't a physical "wifi off" switch on the laptop. Many laptops have such a switch on the outside of the case, easily flipped when pulling it out of a bag.
posted by eamondaly at 7:01 AM on February 16 [4 favorites]

It certainly sounds like a problem with the laptop. The switch to turn wireless on and off that eamondaly mentioned is the most likely thing. I could certainly see drivers being at fault if the wireless connection was dropping off or acting up, but in this day and age the chances of a laptop shipping with wireless connectivity broken out of the box is pretty slim. Of course, there's always the chance that there's something wrong with the laptop.

Any chance you could post the brand and model number/etc of the laptop?
posted by jaffacakerhubarb at 7:25 AM on February 16

Is the laptop still running the factory-installed image of Windows 7, or did somebody wipe it and re-install? If so, then it's possible the driver for the laptop's wi-fi adapter hardware is not installed. Windows comes with a slew of drivers for common hardware, but it doesn't come with all of them.

If you run Device Manager, can you see the wi-fi adapter listed? Does it have a yellow exclamation-point icon?

If so, then the driver is not installed (or the wrong driver is installed) and either way the fix is to hunt around on the manufacturer's Drivers & Downloads section (via your working laptop), find the driver, save it to a USB key, and install it from there.

(Whenever I get a new computer, I format the hard drive and reinstall Windows, and this problem (or its country cousin "no Ethernet driver") bites me all the time.)
posted by Rat Spatula at 7:39 AM on February 16

Try switching the wireless security settings in the router to a different type (ie, if it's on WPA, try WPA2 or WEP or whatever other options your router has available) or even try switching all wireless security settings (temporarily) off for a little test.

The most common problem I've seen with wifi connections is when one end has a protocol that the other end is incompatible with somehow. Even though theoretically you shouldn't be having this problem with something as new as a Win7 machine, there is still the possibility of some weird cross-compatibility issue between your router & the wireless card or driver in your notebook.
posted by flug at 3:41 PM on February 16