Wireless adapter disappeared - URGENT

I have a Dell Studio 1558 running Windows 7. My daughter's boyfriend (now gone of course) was using the internet (dsl connection) and was annoyed by the wireless availability popup in the system tray. I don't know what he did to stop it, but now I'm on the road now and need wifi badly, but my computer shows that there is no wireless adapter installed. I'm not exactly a tech whiz and I have no clue how to proceed. If I can't get this solved soon I'm in deep trouble.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

it's almost certainly still available, just turned off the notification icon for when it's not connected.

In the control panel, in network connections, you should still be able to see all available networking options. I don't have a windows 7 machine close by to give you the steps but if you can't find it, i will be able to look at one in about an hour.

 

Hi

Thanks for such a quick response! No, there is no wireless option listed, only the Realtek local area connection.

 

Hi,
There can be couple of reasons :
1. Your wifi is disabled via Bios so while your computer is booting go to bios by pressing F2 and check in system config whether it is disabled there.
2.There is a wifi slider for dell laptops check if your slider has been set to on or off.(if no slider try Fn + F2 or the Fkey that has the wireless symbol on)
3.Right click on my computer go to device manager and check if the wifi driver has been installed or not or if there is any conflict - if possible reinstall the driver.
4.Go to start -> settings -> network connection and see if the wifi network connection has been disabled or not. (this can be disabled also from device manager) and enable it.

iain.t :major

 

i did what you suggested but saw no system config. went to advanced tab and hit enter on wireless. It came up as follows:

Wireless (switch)/(hotkey): [all]
Internal Bluetooth; enabled
internal wlan: enabled
internal wwan: enabled

 

Hi,
I would suggest that you uninstall the wireless driver then reboot cancel out the found new hardware window and re-install the driver from here...

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...abIndex=&scanSupported=True&scanConsent=False

not sure which is yours you will need to check before uninstalling by looking in the device manager.

iain.t :major

 

Have you looked in the device manager to see if the wireless adapter shows?

Do you have a restore point on the computer pre-boyfriend interference that you could roll back to? That seems like it could be the fastest fix.

People with a little bit of knowledge are the most dangerous kind. I bought a decent but relatively cheap PC for kids/visitors -- still cheaper than the time and aggravation and hindered work from this sort of mess. This would be a nightmare for me.