Re: Wireless adapter oddity "not installed, but works"

Dave & Dan wrote:

However, if I start up my laptop, the system-tray icon for the wireless adapter shows a [Not installed] bubble. If I double-click the icon to bring up the Configuration & Settings app that supports the card, it shows that no connection can be found for any wireless router/access-point. It just keeps showing its little animated panel to indicate it's trying.

David: > Have you tried removing & reinstalling the driver?
David: > Does the NIC work in other laptops?

Dan: > Speaking of which, have you checked with Linksys support on this?

Dave & Dan:

I haven't actually tried anything yet because nothing failed to "work" and I'm not quite prepared to have the laptop out of service for any length of time. I have a specific app on it that is critical to real work that I'm in the middle of. I can't quite take time (yet) to go through any Support channels, nor do I have a 2nd laptop available at my house that's new enough to make use of the card.

It just seemed like such an odd combination of elements that... well, that I wanted to describe it to _somebody_ I felt (1) might have a useful hint and (2) wasn't a total Windows... um, geek.

I mean, there _must_ be some "driver" that's actually functioning. But the GUI for the Linksys software sure can't link to it.

Okay, I can understand how that _could_ happen. But why would it have any affect on speed?
Hmmm... like it's running 802.11b instead of 802.11g... hmmm...

Now that's a thought... It could be that the driver is running fine and the GUI is running fine; but something smacked a registry key or whatever. The GUI is therefore not seeing what the driver is telling it and the driver is running under some default settings. Both are "working" but simply being deprived of some critical info.

I can imagine a kind of internal communications 'pipe' (or whatever) between the two that could suffer a kind of corruption that might explain it. Something to look for, and I'd expect a registry key to be involved.


Time for experimentin'!

Tom Liotta