new Dell laptop lost wi fi connection?

soolin

I have one of the £299 Dell laptops and everything was fine and I was happy using the wi fi connection from the main PC.

However it has suddenly stopped finding nay signal, nothing has changed, I've done nothing different but when I switch onnow it tells me that no wi fi connections can be found in range at all. My sons laptop can still get a connection, in fact standing in the front garden actually picks up two other connections as well, but my Dell shows nothing anywhere.

I'm not at all techie, I've looked online and they talk about things way beyond my comprehension when this happens, is there anything simple I could do to find out what is wrong, or do I need to pay someone in PC world or something to sort it out for me?


Soo

Hillfly

Are you 100% sure you have not somehow disabled the wifi card?

Look in 'Network connections' and make sure the Wireless device is not 'disabled'.

You may like to right click, disdable and then re-enable just to be sure.

soolin

Where it says wireless network connection it says 'not connected - firewalled' and under Local area connection it says 'network cable unplugged'.

if I right click on the wireless network link I have the option to disable. If I click on disable nothing changes, so I have right clicked on it again and it 'enable' and status is till the same.

Soo

peter_the_piper

Sounds like an update of the firewall has blocked your connection. Tell us which firewall you are using and someone here will surely ba able to help.

soolin

I'm using the windows firewall that came with the Dell. It was hsowing as 'On' so I've just turned it off.

Soo

soolin

A quick check has shown that there is a McAFee firewall as well, so I have turned that off but that hasn't made any difference either.

Soo

peter_the_piper

When I click on the disconnected connection I can get a menu option to repair connection, do you get this? if so try it.

Zeitgeist

I had all sorts of problems with my wireless network on my Dell D600 laptop until I updated the drivers from the Dell website. Even though it's a new computer you should check to see if there are any updates. The Dell support site is easy to navigate around, you enter your machine's service tag and it lists all the appropriate drivers:

http://support.euro.dell.com/

I had dropped connections ten-a-penny until I updated my drivers.

soolin

Thanks for all your help, I tried all the various suggestions but in the end gave up and phoned Dell support.

It wasn't too bad, I only waited about 20 mins and the woman that came on to help was very supportive and we went through all the troubleshooting without success. After a while I was put on hold while she went to check about returning the laptop, a pop up appeared telling me to press FN + F2 so I did (nothing left to lose) and it worked. No one can work out why the pop up appeared then or exactly what happened, but all is now well.

Interestingly she also asked me whether I had had problems buying my laptop, so I recounted the story about being hung up on and lied to about the spec, and she told me they were making notes to pass onto the sales management team.

Soo

boogiemaster

I wouldant have a Dell given! Dell boy springs to mind?

highet

FN + F2 on a dell laptop turns wireless networking on and off - when turned on the wifi green light should come on below the screen and an aerial type icon should appear from the taskbar and vice versa when you disable wifi