Vaio Wireless Switch

I'm working on a friend's Vaio PCG-K25 laptop and it's tearing my hair out... and I have little enough left as it is.

He had a problem that led to us having to reformat and reinstall from scratch. I reinstalled Windows XP Professional (SP2), and set about installing the drivers. I always like to start with the wireless card drivers, as it means I can take the laptop around the house and then finish working on the rest.

I found the appropriate drivers, installed them, everything looked fine and the wireless icon appeared in the taskbar. Unfortunately when I double click the icon and View Wireless Networks, I'm told that none are in range or else the wireless card is switched off. Well the laptop is less than a foot from one wireless router, and less than ten yards from a second one. Also the switch is turned on (was off until after installing the drivers, but now neither on nor off fixes the problem).

It's driving me insane. I have tried the following:

• Disabling/enabling the card via Network Connections
• Toggling the physical switch on and off
• Removing the wireless software installation, and reinstalling it
• Uninstalling the driver and allowing Windows to find and install the driver
• Rolling back the driver after Windows installs one
• Updating the driver (no newer one available)
• Going to the advanced properties of the Device and toggling the radio off then back on again
• Toggling Windows not to control the wireless device, and back on again

The physical switch sounds like it's clicking on and off correctly, and the device appears to be working correctly when I look at the status of it in the Device Manager. It acts like it is staying Off regardless of the switch. I know with other laptops there's a hardware on/off (the physical switch or FN hotkey) as well as a software on/off via the manufacturers utility that comes with the card. Well no manufacturers utility is installed, so while I don't think that can be the case, it does make me wonder if the card itself was put into an OFF state via some software from before the reformat, and nothing I've done so far has told the card to return to an ON state. Is that a possibility or am I just desperate?

At the back of my mind I keep wondering if the switch itself is broken, but frankly it seems like such a crazy coincidence I doubt it.

I'm installing service pack 3 as I post this, though I don't expect it'll help any.

Does anyone have any other suggestions to add or any thoughts that might help?

 

Hi

I have a Vaio laptop, it's about 4 years old (and except for a few minor things, still works great).

Either way, I'm assuming you went to Sony's specific driver webpage for that laptop model/OS in order to install the drivers. My laptop's physical wireless switch has a small green light that lights up when it is on, and the light goes out when it is switched off. Does the K25 have this light? I honestly can't remember (I used to have a VERY similar model Vaio, can't remember the exact model number, could have been a K25).

Vaios do NOT have software on/off for the actual wireless card. However, reinstalling other drivers on the machine COULD affect it.

Also, Vaios are VERY finicky when installing drivers... i.e. don't do ANYTHING else on the computer except install the driver, no other programs running, etc.

Other than that, I can't imagine what the issue is.

 

I had a call from the owner today asking how things were going. I told him good, though I was having so much trouble getting the wireless card working again. "Oh the wireless card?", he said, "yeah don't worry about that, it hasn't worked in forever".

Isn't life hilarious?

Thanks for the fast post mcsmc, and sorry to waste forum space!

 

Heh, I can imagine the relief! Too bad though... the wireless card is kind of a crucial component of a laptop (I think).