Getting snookered trying to connect a new laptop running Vista Home Basic to our fully functional home WLAN!

May 26, 2008 12:40 PM

I have recently received a brand new HP530 laptop sporting an Intel Celeron M chip at 1.6GHz running a pre-installed version of Microsoft Windows Home Basic. Lovely to look at, but I rapidly came to grief attempting to connect to my BT HomeHub WLAN which works just fine for my iMac and another laptop PC.

(1) Following the recommended route of going "Control Panel>Network & Sharing Center>Connect to a network" I get the message "Windows cannot find any network". Going to the submenu "Sharing & Discovery" I see that Network discovery is switched OFF. Clicking on "Turn on network discovery" then "Apply" then, in the User Account Control pop-up window, "Continue", I find that Network discovery is STILL switched OFF!
(2) I then attempt to "Manually connect to a wireless network" only to get told "An unexpected error occurred" (no error type specified, so no help there)!
(3) When clicking on Windows Network Diagnostics, I am told that "The network adapter 'Wireless Network Connection' is not connected" and that "Windows found a problem that cannot be repaired automatically".
(4) I then attempt to connect to my modem router using a USB cable. This prompts an instruction to insert the CD-ROM which came with the modem router. As this is not readily to hand, I downloaded the relevant driver from the ISP website using a different laptop PC (loaded with Windows XP Professional) onto a USB memory stick. On inserting the stick and opening up the contents on the new HP laptop I discover that the driver file is zipped. Despite Vista supposedly having a built-in zipper/unzipper subprogramme, I cannot find it. I therefore go back to the other machine and download a free zipper/unzipper programme onto the same memory stick, only to find that, before it will open, it requires the prospective user to access the website in turn (as it's free, they employ marketing tools). Snookered!
(5) As it's a Bank holiday over here, the telephone support I am entitled to for 90 days will not be available for another 12 hours. Aaarrrghh!
Surely this issue must have cropped up before? A quick googletrawl doesn't throw up immediate answers, and the Microsoft website Q&As are notably unhelpful, even regarding unzipping in Vista.
Any solutions, anyone?

posted by kairab to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Best guest: does the laptop have a button on/near the keyboard that powers the WiFi card? You'd think the software would do this, but on some Windows laptops I've used, not so much.
posted by fatllama at 1:16 PM on May 26, 2008

Potentially daft question: Is the laptop's Wifi adaptor turned on?

Here's the manual for wireless - http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00881946/c00881946.pdf - seems to tell you what buttons to press and lights to check for.

Actually, here's another potentially daft question: Does your laptop have a built-in Wifi adaptor? (Going on HP saying 'select models only')

As to the unzipper proggie, go for something like 7zip. Free, open source and can handle most archives you care to chuck at it.
posted by pinkbuttonanus at 1:20 PM on May 26, 2008

You probably just have to double click the zip file or right click it and select extract or highlight it and find the appropriate option on the left panel thingy.
posted by douglaswth at 3:04 PM on May 26, 2008

Thanks guys for your advice so far. There is a button above the keyboard which when pushed gives you a blue illuminated WiFi icon - I guess that's the WiFi ON button, and I've had it ON while trying to connect. The OS tells me there's a Broadcom 802.11b /g WLAN onboard - I guess that's the WiFi card. The unzipper Itried to download actually was 7zip, but you can't seemingly use it if you have (as yet) no internet connection on the machine... I'll probably have to wait for the helpline to come on at 08.30 UK time. Many thanks anyhow!
posted by kairab at 5:03 PM on May 26, 2008

Got myself sorted out by downloading a BIOS flash update and a WLAN driver update, as recommended by the HP telephone support line. To do this I needed to download these updates onto a memory stick using my wife's PC so that I could then transfer them nto the new laptop. I guess the lesson (if any) is to have another PC with working internet access, and a memory stick, ready at all times, and to browse the manufacturer and/or Microsoft website(s) for updates first.

Thanks again to all helpers!
posted by kairab at 11:25 AM on May 27, 2008