Problem with laptop's built-in wireless (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gardiner]

Hi everybody,

The boss has a brand new GO WIN N1 400 laptop with built-in 802.11b capability. The manufacturer of the wireless component is Gemtek. We have had problems: the wireless capability will disappear spontaneously. When this happens, Network Properties indicates not a disabled wireless connection, but the lack of wireless hardware at all! Likewise, Device Manager indicates NO wireless hardware is present. Yesterday I uninstalled and re-installed the drivers, with no effect. After some time, I tried again and got wireless back at the end of the day.

Does anyone know what could cause this? No one had made any changes to the computer (other than changing the desktop wallpaper), i.e. no new hardware or software was installed. The boss has heard over the grapevine that recent solar activity has been causing problems with wireless networks, but I think this would cause interference when trying to communicate, NOT cause the hardware to become uninstalled/undetected.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this problem from coming up in the future? Many thanks for any ideas.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Update:

(I know "bumping" one's own thread is frowned upon, but this is nearly two months later and I'm still having the same problem.)

I have been using a new driver for the wireless card, one that was downloaded from the manufacturer's site rather than the one on the CD included with the laptop.

The same problem still occurs occasionally. We are considering buying a separate PCMCIA card with 802.11G capability, in order to speed up large file transfers to the laptop, as well as to avoid the intermittent hardware failures we've had with the built-in wireless card. Can anyone recommend a brand of card over any other? Our wireless hub is from BELKIN and has worked without any problems.

Does anyone have any advice for me and the boss, or a similar experience they would like to share? Many thanks.

 

[DonRoeber]

The laptop is brand new, and probably under warranty. Send it back, it sounds like the hardware is faulty.