Solved! Wireless notebook card suddenly stopped working

[tjcooper]

I have a M70 notebook. The wireless card in it suddently stopped working. I bought a new Broadcom unit instead of Dell's Intel wireless card to go into the mini-pci slot. That wireless card also would not find any networks even though my other laptop computer sitting next to it says there at 5 in the area. So I swapped the original Intel wireless card from the M70 and put it into a Dell D600 that accepts the same cards. In the Dell D600, the Intel card works just fine.

What I have tried: gone to BIOS and be sure card is seen and that RADIO is turned on. Used Network Connections to both disable and re-enable the card. Control Panel shows that both wireless cards were installed and had good drivers and that all the protocols were loaded and had the right type of parameters.

Can the wireless antennae be bad? I have ordered a set just to rule out that problem. I think the mini-pci had to be working otherwise the Control Panel could not see the units and their drivers activiated. I have looked for all the possible "switches" that can turn off radio or wireless and all that I can find are ON.

Any ideas of what to look for in the M70 to get the wireless to work again....oh, did a complete reformat of hard disk and reinstall of Win XP SP2 to the system and that did not help anything. I cannot find any "apps" for the Broadcom like the Intel wireless has which tells you the complete state of the wireless card and its signal strength of stations that it can find. If anyone knows of such an application that works with the Broadcom wireless card, please pass it on. Much thanks.
Tjcooper

 

[buwish]

That is indeed quite strange. Like you suggested, it could be a bad antennae, but I'm thinking that it could be an issue with the motherboard. Perhaps one of the vital connections "piping" the wireless signal into the motherboard is burnt out. Either that or it could be a software issue, but with the reformatting, I highly doubt it. You could try calling Dell to see if they have any solutions (perhaps they have seen it before), but that could be a dead end as well.