computer network card problem

[jellybaby]

decided to restart the main house laptop all went well until i tried to connect to the internet. the computer has a built in network card for wireless but it wont work. it shows up in the devices menu and says the drivers are up to date it's enabled i just can't get it to work. the computer works with a plug in dongle but obviously if i wanted that i wouldn't have brought one with it already installed. i don't have a program disk with it though any ideas or anyone in the local area fancy taking a look.
cheers

[Alchamist]

Does it show up in Network properties? Do you have any other wireless devices and are they still working? If not, try restarting your wireless router just incase that has thrown a wobbly

[Rifleman]

that happened to mine recently and the guy that look after mine when it goes wrong said to disconnect from the mains, remove and refit the battery, and restart it again, and it worked.

[jellybaby]

the other computers in the house work wireless restarting the computer didn't do anything and i cant restart the card itself dont know how

[Sir-Doris]

If a lappy it might have a sliding switch that turns the radio on and off. You may have accidentally switched it off. There is also an option on wireless cards to turn the radio on and off through software. If there is an icon in the taskbar try right clicking it or left clicking it and see if there is a radio on/off option.

[jellybaby]

yea it has a switch but it does not work in the devices list ti tells me the cards there but i cannot get it to work. the laptop was brought with everything installed on it already iand i added a vista upgrade pack which wjped all the old programs off and did a clean install, is it the fact that i've managed to wipe the opperating program off for the card. if so can they be downloaded

[Alchamist]

Yeah, should be able to. Go to the device manager, look at the card and driver properties and "update"

... or wipe it and put a real operating system on!

[meooo]

But won't he need to be connected to the interweb to update the drivers???

[Rich]

simple download the drivers on another computer copy them to a flash drive and install them off there

[Roo]

[Ruathar]

Of all the Vista upgrades I have done this year the biggest problems I have found are the wireless cards. Everything else just seems to be detected and working by Vista these days but for some reason the wireless cards don't. Best bet is to get new drivers from the laptop manufacturer but as I found out to my detriment a few weeks ago some wireless network cards are not all compatible

[Roo]

[jellybaby]

still no luck tried a pc card and it wont find any networks and the belkin dongle i have finds my network but just won't connect. The computer upstairs connects fine looks like paying for a engineer to luck at it i'm stumped.
restarted computer
new drivers
tried the repair option and it says all ok
switch won't operate the wireless any more

[Drift]

We lost the connection to the lap top, just this afternoon I hit the rest button on the router and started it all again from scratch, got a result, xbox and lappy all working, now I can be left on here in peace without going the loo and finding someone sitting here when I get back.

[jellybaby]

router works fine when i plug a cable in

[jellybaby]

think i'm wrong somewhere what i thought was the wireless card in the device manger is not

thing my wireless card is a atheros but i cant find anything like it in the device manager

[alex]

Maybe a cheapy usb wireless dongle will do the biz. Bet the lappy one aint Vista compatible.

If ya can wait till Friday afternoon can give you ten minutes to have a looky.

[Alchamist]

If you are stuck at the weekend and can get the lappy over to me, I can have a lookie for you

[tws7501968]

What happens if you search for new devices?

[jellybaby]

just tried scan for hardware changes and its downloading drivers from microsoft for a ethernet controler?????????? whats one of them
as you see i know nothing about computers actually i know nothing at all