wifi lock

my new PC has "wifi on/off" on the F12 button. what is the PURPOSE of this?

spent 2+ hours trying to debug my connection today before noticing this teeny tiny little button!!

worse yet, i've hit it once or twice WHILE connected, only to find myself...um..."not so connected" anymore....

 

This seems to be the 'improvement' from the little manual switch on later laptops, but I have not seen it on the pc keyboard, myself.
On a laptop it was a bit obscure and often involved lifting the laptop to find it, especially if you worked on diferent laptops, so the wireless tab on a button did appear to be an improvement

 

good to know, plodr! i figured it was some sort of SECURITY purpose (blocking other wifi from piggybacking or sumpin); battery didn't occur to me!

my old laptop had a card modem (PCMCIA?), so i wasn't aware there would ever be ANY switch, baklogic. as luck would have it, tho, today i had some techies take a look at the new pc to fix my VPN issues (other thread), and when they couldn't connect themselves, they briefly flipped it over.

i was thinking "what the heck?!" at the time, but i guess it was actly what ur talking about here.