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Laptop with wireless woes - can't get any adapter to work

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    Laptop with wireless woes - can't get any adapter to work

    I have a laptop that we just got in from a refurbisher we work with regularly. Model is a Dell E5410, and it has a DW1520 wireless adapter in it. Our tech dropped an image (Win7 x64) on it, and set about configuring it for the end user.

    Unfortunately, he didn't realize that the wireless wasn't working until near the end of the build, and now we're trying to fix it so that we don't have to reload the whole thing.

    Here's the symptoms - built-in wired card works fine. Wireless drivers install correctly, and the device shows as OK in the device manager. When you go into the adapter list, the wireless shows as disabled. If you right-click -> enable, the popup window shows "Enabling", and then "enabled", but when it goes away, the adapter is still disabled.

    We have tried completely removing the drivers, installing the broadcom drivers for the chipset, and the Dell-provided drivers for the card. Updated the BIOS from its outdated A04, to the current A14.

    Finally, I brought it home tonight to keep working on it. Plugged my Rosewill USB wireless adapter into it, installed drivers, and THAT doesn't work, either. The Rosewill adapter shows that it's enabled, but won't give me a list of networks to choose from. On boot, I see the light on the USB adapter flash a few times, but it never comes on solid like I expect it to.

    Is this thing just gone or what? It's possible that our base image isn't good for these laptops, or that the laptop itself has problems. If I can't sort this out tonight, we'll be looking at other options, and possibly hand-loading this one from scratch to see if it works.

    Oh yeah, and one last thing.... yes, the wireless switch is on.
    Ludicrous gibs!


    #2
    Re: Laptop with wireless woes - can't get any adapter to work

    try installing the .inf in the dell driver directly (7zip open the R___.exe file first). Aka remove the driver and then update the driver via device manager (or computer management). installing it the "normal" way adds dell-utility horse puckey that knocks out the windows utility (or so does every dell-provided wifi driver i've seen).

    Too bad it isn't intel wifi, since intel distributes vanilla wifi drivers from thier site, while broadcom only does it for their wired LAN (not wifi or BT).
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      #3
      Re: Laptop with wireless woes - can't get any adapter to work

      Have tried with and without the dell and broadcom utilities. Using Dell and Broadcom OEM drivers (they are available). They Dell INFs are straight Broadcom files. Only think that's different is the description of the adapter, which gets changed to "DW1520 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card". The driver files themselves are BCM43xx drivers.

      Either way, no change. And even with all other wireless card drivers uninstalled, my Rosewill adapter still doesn't work, and that's based off a Realtek driver.
      Ludicrous gibs!

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        #4
        Re: Laptop with wireless woes - can't get any adapter to work

        drop a new OS on it mabe the wireless broke during the install.
        Last edited by goontron; 05-15-2013, 01:05 PM. Reason: Linux maby
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          #5
          Re: Laptop with wireless woes - can't get any adapter to work

          make sure some shit program didn't get installed with the drivers that keeps trying to take over WAC
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            #6
            Re: Laptop with wireless woes - can't get any adapter to work

            Originally posted by dood View Post
            Have tried with and without the dell and broadcom utilities. Using Dell and Broadcom OEM drivers (they are available). They Dell INFs are straight Broadcom files. Only think that's different is the description of the adapter, which gets changed to "DW1520 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card". The driver files themselves are BCM43xx drivers.
            Look for that string in the .inf file. Take note which specific PCI key it references. Then check it in device manager. It's probably a closer match, or even the match. Or the something is forcing a different "device description"/sub config (see RD's sound issues for example), even though you've got supposedly correct drivers/infs.

            Go into \inf and open any OEM**.inf in notepad. Delete any having to do with wireless adapters. Don't forget to delete the PNFs as well. Example: if you've deleted OEM5.inf and OEM11.inf, make sure you delete OEM5.pnf and OEM11.pnf as well! Otherwise, the PNFs will be used to rebuild the very INFs you want to get rid of.

            Then, try your "correct" drivers again.

            Originally posted by dood View Post
            Either way, no change. And even with all other wireless card drivers uninstalled, my Rosewill adapter still doesn't work, and that's based off a Realtek driver.
            Did you uncheck any services in MSCONFIG? There's a combination, I forget right now, that will cause WIFI not to work. This would be any wireless LAN device. I do remember that the items in question aren't ones you'd initially suspect, of causing wlan problems.

            Originally posted by dood's original post
            The Rosewill adapter shows that it's enabled, but won't give me a list of networks to choose from. On boot, I see the light on the USB adapter flash a few times, but it never comes on solid like I expect it to.
            Had exactly this problem in an HP netbook. I even tried another adapter, also USB, ironically. And, like yours, it also didn't work. Trying the USB adapter in my computer verified that it did indeed work, so it was something in that HP. I enabled all services, and no more wlan problems. I then "rem'ed out" the "risky" and "unneeded" services in MSCONFIG, checking wireless each time.

            What an iterative process.
            "pokemon go... to hell!"

            EOL it...
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