HP Pavvilion Laptop Wireless Problem

I have and HP 4265 Laptop. The wireless card seems to be faulty. The
blue light indicator goes off frequently for no reason and the
connection gets really slow. I am about 5 feet from the router. I
don't think it is the router because I have tried two of them and it
happens with both. Anyone ave a clue as to what is going on? The
Laptop is still under warantee.
M

Try new driver.
"mstrspy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have and HP 4265 Laptop. The wireless card seems to be faulty. The
> blue light indicator goes off frequently for no reason and the
> connection gets really slow. I am about 5 feet from the router. I
> don't think it is the router because I have tried two of them and it
> happens with both. Anyone ave a clue as to what is going on? The
> Laptop is still under warantee.
> M
>

mstrspy wrote:
> I have and HP 4265 Laptop. The wireless card seems to be faulty. The
> blue light indicator goes off frequently for no reason and the
> connection gets really slow. I am about 5 feet from the router. I
> don't think it is the router because I have tried two of them and it
> happens with both. Anyone ave a clue as to what is going on? The
> Laptop is still under warantee.
> M

The blue light should not go off unless you physically turn off
wireless. Return it.

mstrspy <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>I have and HP 4265 Laptop.

Google doesn't find anything under "HP 4265". Wanna try again on the
model number?

>The wireless card seems to be faulty. The
>blue light indicator goes off frequently for no reason and the
>connection gets really slow.

No way. The blue light is just a DC power indicator showing that the
wireless is enabled. If it's going on and off without any user
action, you have problem. There's a push button in the keyboard area
somewhere that turns the wireless on and off. Some laptops have a
slide switch. It's possible that the slide switch or push button is
loose, or the connector going to the switch is loose. There's also a
keyboard combination that turns on and off the wireless. In addition,
there's an appication somewhere that automagically selects between the
ethernet port and the wireless. I forgot the name. If you have
something plugged into the ethernet port, and it is also loose, then
the wireless light will go on and off.

>I am about 5 feet from the router. I
>don't think it is the router because I have tried two of them and it
>happens with both.

Two of them what? Two router? Two laptops? Two foots?

>Anyone ave a clue as to what is going on? The
>Laptop is still under warantee.

Since it's a new laptop, my guess(tm) is that there's something busted
inside. Use the force, er... warranty.

Incidentally, one of my customers bought a brand new HP Z-something
laptop around Christmas. SMART utilities showed that the hard disk
was generating errors continuously and that the drive was about to
fail. It's now 2 months later and it's still working and merrily
generating new bad sectors. HP won't replace the drive until the
drive completely fails. I'm not very happy with HP.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>mstrspy <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>
>>I have and HP 4265 Laptop.
>
>Google doesn't find anything under "HP 4265". Wanna try again on the
>model number?

I just remembered that I took home a customers HP Pavilion dv4230US
laptop. It should be similar to whatever you have. There's a blue
light in the middle of the hinge. Just in front of the hinge is a
push button which turns the wireless on and off. There's also a
system tray application called "HP Wireless Assistant" which seems to
control on screen notifications and not much else.

I tried turning off the access point and running my microwave oven and
cordless phone to see if I could get the blue light to flash. Nothing.
It's lit even when there's no connection or wireless access point in
the area.

When I plugged in a wired ethernet connection, it aquired an IP
address and did NOT disconnect the wireless link. Weird. The blue
light stayed on.

Before you return your laptop under warranty, try reseating the
MiniPCI card. Unplug the laptop power glob, remove the battery, flip
over the laptop, and unscrew the door that covers the wireless card.
Don't mangle the coax antenna connections. Remove the MiniPCI
(probably Broadcom) wireless card and reinstall it very carefully. Try
wireless again. Maybe it's just a loose connection.
--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Hi Jeff: Sorry about the number. It is the 4170. I called HP tech
support and they walked me through the problem. The device drivers
needed to be re installed. The light now stays on.

Actually I'm impressed with Hp's tech support. I had an issue with my
daughter's laptop and they repaired it in two days. I had to Fedex it
to HP (at their expense) and received it repaired in two days.




On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 14:16:45 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>mstrspy <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>
>>I have and HP 4265 Laptop.
>
>Google doesn't find anything under "HP 4265". Wanna try again on the
>model number?
>
>>The wireless card seems to be faulty. The
>>blue light indicator goes off frequently for no reason and the
>>connection gets really slow.
>
>No way. The blue light is just a DC power indicator showing that the
>wireless is enabled. If it's going on and off without any user
>action, you have problem. There's a push button in the keyboard area
>somewhere that turns the wireless on and off. Some laptops have a
>slide switch. It's possible that the slide switch or push button is
>loose, or the connector going to the switch is loose. There's also a
>keyboard combination that turns on and off the wireless. In addition,
>there's an appication somewhere that automagically selects between the
>ethernet port and the wireless. I forgot the name. If you have
>something plugged into the ethernet port, and it is also loose, then
>the wireless light will go on and off.
>
>>I am about 5 feet from the router. I
>>don't think it is the router because I have tried two of them and it
>>happens with both.
>
>Two of them what? Two router? Two laptops? Two foots?
>
>>Anyone ave a clue as to what is going on? The
>>Laptop is still under warantee.
>
>Since it's a new laptop, my guess(tm) is that there's something busted
>inside. Use the force, er... warranty.
>
>Incidentally, one of my customers bought a brand new HP Z-something
>laptop around Christmas. SMART utilities showed that the hard disk
>was generating errors continuously and that the drive was about to
>fail. It's now 2 months later and it's still working and merrily
>generating new bad sectors. HP won't replace the drive until the
>drive completely fails. I'm not very happy with HP.

mstrspy <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Hi Jeff: Sorry about the number. It is the 4170. I called HP tech
>support and they walked me through the problem. The device drivers
>needed to be re installed. The light now stays on.

Huh? A bad or corrupted driver causes the wireless card to turn on
and off? Not an update but the same pre-installed drivers? Well,
that's a new one for me.

>Actually I'm impressed with Hp's tech support. I had an issue with my
>daughter's laptop and they repaired it in two days. I had to Fedex it
>to HP (at their expense) and received it repaired in two days.

I suspect that if the failure was clear and obvious, they would not
have a problem with repairing it. In my hard disk case, only the
non-HP diagnostics showed a problem. I had a similar problem with a
Dell Inspiron 3000 which came with a Maxtor SATA drive that was
obviously failing. Dell would not replace it until their own
utilities demonstrated a total failure. They then sent an on-site
service technician to the customers, replaced the drive with a new
blank drive, and drove away. I got to reload and restore everything.
Sony did effectively the same thing when a Vaio desktop drive failed.
Grrrr....

Fortunately, I don't deal with warranty issues very often. My
customers do the groundwork and I only get involved in the ones that
turn into horror stories. It could also be my total lack of tact and
diplomacy when on the phone with support. It's gratifying to see that
someone at least gets decent warranty service. Congrats.

Incidentally, and unrelated: Favorite free S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic
report utility:
http://www.almico.com/sfscreenshots.php
See bottom screenshot. It's caught several dying hard disks before
they completely crashed.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> mstrspy <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>
>> Hi Jeff: Sorry about the number. It is the 4170. I called HP tech
>> support and they walked me through the problem. The device drivers
>> needed to be re installed. The light now stays on.
>
> Huh? A bad or corrupted driver causes the wireless card to turn on
> and off? Not an update but the same pre-installed drivers? Well,
> that's a new one for me.

Well on an HP Tablet PC, there is no real switch, it's a soft-switch in
the Q menu. I had a tablet where I just couldn't get the wireless to
come on, even with installing the latest drivers from Intel for the
Mini-PCI card. Eventually I reinstalled the OS from scratch, and the
wireless started working properly. So I guess it can be a driver or OS
issue as well, even though I've never seen the light flashing on and off.

I guess I spoke too soon. It still looses the blue light but when the
light goes out, i still have connectivity to the internet. I am really
mistified over this issue.


On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 16:11:03 -0800, SMS <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>> mstrspy <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>>
>>> Hi Jeff: Sorry about the number. It is the 4170. I called HP tech
>>> support and they walked me through the problem. The device drivers
>>> needed to be re installed. The light now stays on.
>>
>> Huh? A bad or corrupted driver causes the wireless card to turn on
>> and off? Not an update but the same pre-installed drivers? Well,
>> that's a new one for me.
>
>Well on an HP Tablet PC, there is no real switch, it's a soft-switch in
>the Q menu. I had a tablet where I just couldn't get the wireless to
>come on, even with installing the latest drivers from Intel for the
>Mini-PCI card. Eventually I reinstalled the OS from scratch, and the
>wireless started working properly. So I guess it can be a driver or OS
>issue as well, even though I've never seen the light flashing on and off.

mstrspy <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>I guess I spoke too soon. It still looses the blue light but when the
>light goes out, i still have connectivity to the internet. I am really
>mistified over this issue.

My best guess is still that that either the MiniPCI wireless card is
loose in its socket, or that some connector involved in wireless is
loose. Try re-seating the wireless card. However, don't mess furthur
with the drivers or operating system. That part is apparently
working.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558