Windows not recognizing wireless card

Hello. I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 notebook. I just reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows XP. As soon as I got back up and running, I noticed that my external wireless card wasn’t working. The lights on the top weren’t coming on, and the device wasn’t showing up in the device manager. About a day later, I powered up the computer and the wireless card worked fine; I was able to access the internet without a problem. However after about an hour later, the lights suddenly cut off, I could no longer access the internet, and the device was missing from the device manager. I've installed the driver, but it doesn't make a difference.

My first thought was that it was a hardware problem with the wireless card reader (PCI bus?), but it had never done this before, is it just coincidence that I start to have this problem after a reformat and clean install of Windows?

Many thanks in advance

 

I run a ThinkPad R-40. Sometimes I have trouble getting a dynamic IP address from my Linux Box/Router/DHCP Server. My Mini PCI card is an Atheros Chip WIFI card. I have found that it is much more stable with a static IP. When it can't get the IP from the DHCP server it doesn't show up in the device manager. I don't know why. I have set my static IP to 192.168.1.55 where the DHCP server uses 192.168.1.100-150 and my router is at 192.168.1.1. I use the DNS server numbers that my router gets from Comcast.

 

You said about after an hour of using it is when I cut out. My first guess would be that your battery was dieing. When power starts running low, periphrial devices are the first to fail. Make sure you have a full battery when running the care and if you can, try and stay plugged in with a charger. Although, that kind of defeats the purpose of having a wireless card. Bottom line, I hate laptop batteries cause they don't last at all. Thats my two cents.

 

Hi Erik / shnredly

Have you both Disabled the IEEE Calibration in the Card Properties ?

Right clikc on the wireless icon on the right hand side
Click Properties
Look for the advanced options
there wil be a check box with some kind of refference to IEEE ( Not Remembering exactly ) uncheck that,

This resolves the issue of the Card Dropping connection.

Also try changing the chanel in which your router operates, Defualt more often than not is # 6 change it to # 11 and try

 

Thanks for the replies everyone . KOB, I keep it plugged in all the time, so it's not the power issue. Hardmarkien, it's not showing that I have a card inserted. The computer isn't recognizing it, so I cant get to things like wireless connections or the cards properties.

 

i had that wit my belkin wireless - called them and they replaced it

 

Erik have you checked int he system BIOS if the Wirless Card is enabled ?

 

An update on the situation, I purchased a new wireless card, which worked for about 40 minutes or so, then suddenly cut of just like before . Could it possibly be an overheating problem? I upgraded my RAM from 256 to 1024 in June and noticed the computer running hotter, but haven't seen a problem up until a few days ago when all this started (and it seems like too much of a coincidence that I start having trouble with it after I reinstall windows.)

And Hardmarkerin, I haven't tried that yet. How do I check the BIOS?

Again, thanks everyone for your replies.