Resolved Wireless receiver turned off after connecting to network via cable

After being plugged into a network at school a Lenovo laptop running Vista Business cannot reestablish the wireless connection when the user returns home and attempts to connect to her wireless network.

The computer is about a year old so it isn't an old networking device. The driver was updated to the latest from Lenovo last week but it continues to happen.

The solution Vista finds is to turn on the wireless capability in the laptop but it is not turned it off to begin with (at least not by the user).

Any thoughts gratefully appreciated, thanks.

 

My Lenovo laptop is Windows XP, so the settings might be different.

Lenovo has software to store network profiles and make switching easier . Look in the notification tray for icons for Thinkvantage Access Connections. If there is an icon with bars, double-click that and you should see the option to Power On Wireless Radio. It should also be accessed by pressing Fn + F5. If that works, fine, but it probably needs to have separate "network location" profiles configured. The Thinkvantage Access Connections is probably set to "power off the wireless radio" when changing network locations.

When Access Connections is configured correctly it is very handy when changing networks, so don't just uninstall it.

Some things you should do/check if it won't connect:

• Make separate profiles for school or home.
• The school network might use a Proxy Server for connecting to the internet, so those settings might need to be overridden when connecting at home.
• A LAN/Ethernet cable can be connected from the laptop to the router/modem at home to help with configuration (check firewall settings, etc). Be careful if there might be another firewall apart from Windows Firewall (only use one).
• Look in Vista's wireless settings (Control Panel -> Network Connections and look at the Properties for the Wireless), you might need to disable Windows from "configuring" the wireless connection or configure both Access Connections and Windows wireless networking for the Home profile.

Anyway, good luck with just turning the wireless radio back on (Fn + F5), if it automatically turns back off again you will need to configure the profiles like I suggested.

Matt
[I will move this to networking.]

 

Thanks Matt, I shall give it all a thorough inspection tomorrow morning with the owner and let you know how she makes out she takes it to school and back

 

One simple thing to check is if the security button for wireless connectivity was accidentally turned off
Its a simple thing often overlooked
Often the button is barely described or at best 1 line in the manuals

 

Thanks visionof - that was not an issue, the switch was always on.

 

I installed the latest version of AC and it seems to have taken care of the issue. The user can see the profiles quite easily and understands how to use it

I remember a few years ago I was having a problem with one of my own IBM machines and the IBM support tech told me to uninstall it and use Windows. When I set up this customer's Vista machine I did the same thing and it worked fine as long as she didn't take it anywhere

Thanks Matt