Vista does not detect wireless network

G'day.

Notification of problem solved (at least so far) - may help someone else in teh future - that someone might be me, if it happens again and I forget what I did.

Just spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon trying to get my son's Vista PC to detect our wireless modem/router - messed with drivers and all the other usual suspects, but to no avail. It had worked for about 6 months (new computer), then just stopped. I was able to connect through an Ethernet cable after that though (and another XP SP2 PC we have was still OK on wireless, although it uses a USB adapter).

The Vista Network adapter was not listing under Device Manager => Network Adapters.

Solution was to disable Network detection (can't remember the exact name) in the BIOS (in third grouping down on teh left - peripherals?),then allow the computer to boot, then reboot, resetting teh Network detection to Enable on teh way in.

The other thing I did of possible significance was to disable Netmeter, which I did about an hour before I got to the solution. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. I have now restored Netmeter, so if the problem recurs, I will test the significance of this.

 

Thanks for the explanation, Halo. I didn't know why that would work. Wondering, though (just out of curiosity), is that different from uninstalling the drivers in Device Manager, then rebooting for a fresh install (which I did)?

 

Thanks, Halo. Useful info.
I've been trying to help k0rbeh sort out a graphics problem (http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=179522) with not much success so far. Maybe I'll throw these ideas his way and see what happens.

 

I have been wondering about a way to totally delete the network and start fresh from our Vista Desktop, as it is the main PC that the router is connected to. it has been formatted a number of times this year, and I have to jump thru hoops to reset the network up.. while searching for the network devices it isnt showing all the computers on the network, and when I look for the network names... workgroup/mshome, I have noticed there are quite a few now.. have you a simple way to start fresh with this problem. I have had to learn by the school of hard knocks.. and my hubby isnt knowlegable enough about networking to fix it.... Thank you Rachel

 

Updated Fix Instructions:

My first attempt at writing instructions for this fix was a bit wayward (as suspected - see first post for background to problem) - sorry if that made life difficult for anyone.

The fix is:

• Boot into BIOS
• Select Integrated Peripherals > Onboard Device (this is only for an onboard Network Adapter) > Onboard LAN Device
• Disable the LAN Device (follow onscreen directions for this)
• Continue boot
• Reboot into BIOS again (actually, pedantically speaking, that would not be "again") and Enable Onboard LAN Device.
• Continue boot

Hopefully the connection will now be established.
(Our PC hung on the second reboot - just restarted and it was OK)

Out of interest, when we lost the connection, I said that this had happened before and I fixed it somehow. Couldn't remember how at all.
Logged on to MG for another reason and was looking through my subscribed threads when I came across this one. Looked it up and there was my answer!
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