Wireless device down and won't get up again

February 7, 2008 3:32 AM

Wireless device on my girlfriend's hp has just stopped working. Regardless of the position of the switch, the light remains amber and not blue. Is this a hardware problem that needs professional attention? Or is there something that we can try to get it going?

It's a nearly identical question to this one at Yahoo! Answers*, although the answer over there is singularly unhelpful.

*except a different model of computer - this one's a dv6000.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

posted by kisch mokusch to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Apologies for such a basic suggestion but when this happens on my router (a D-Link), unplugging the whole thing and plugging it back in again plus a Windows reboot will fix the problem.
posted by ceri richard at 3:55 AM on February 7

I have a similar laptop and understand your problem

Id suggest the software has the ability to override. I can do it on my computer via the "HP wireless assistant software". It's running in the system tray normally and manages wireless and bluetooth for the computer. Regardless of the hardware switch (which often seems to forget what the setting should be I can fire up the software and hit 'enable' on wireless. Have you tried that?

Dunno how to access it properly but its in the system tray if I doubleclick on the wireless icon regardless of the hardware state at the time

Also, i enjoy your use of tags
posted by kaydo at 4:10 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]

(@CR - He said the computer was the problem, not the router.)

I have no answer for the question, but I can suggest that she can limp along with an ExpressCard-based wireless connection until someone smarter than I am can answer it.
posted by megatherium at 4:15 AM on February 7

kaydo's suggestion sounds good, but if it doesn't work, you might want to try the Windows connection repair if you haven't already. Open "network connections" from Control Panel, right click on the wireless connection and pick "repair". This fixed a problem for me recently.
posted by teleskiving at 5:04 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]

Well, turns out my girlfriend is more savvy than I am! Shortly after I posted the question, she managed to enable the device through BIOS:

I made her show me what she did so that I could post the details for any future sufferers:

Restart and press F10 when the HP logo appears to get into BIOS.

Go to System Configuration: Boot Options

Ensure Internal Network Adapter Boot is enabled.



We still have no idea how it managed to become disabled.


Thank you for the answers. The router was still fine (I was using it on my computer to post the question). I didn't get a chance to try the suggestions, but you've already demonstrated why AskMe kicks Yahoo!'s ass.
posted by kisch mokusch at 5:15 AM on February 7

Also, couldn't mark you as best answer kaydo, because I never got to find out if it works!
posted by kisch mokusch at 5:18 AM on February 7

@megatherium, I know that but router issues that appear to be computer hardware related can be fixed by reset/reboot. Admittedly that's the extent of my knowledge on the matter... ;-)
posted by ceri richard at 5:47 AM on February 7

Just as another data point, my hp dv6000 does the same thing from time to time, and a simple reboot has always been enough to bring the wireless device back to life for me.
posted by logic vs love at 7:44 AM on February 7