Cannot see AP on W7 laptop, but can on XP

[Rich24]

I have a Dell Inspiron that I just ran the W7 Anytime Upgrade from W7 Home to Pro. This was done in order to connect this laptop to our domain. The upgrade worked without any problems. When attempting to connect to our AP, the wireless network does not appear on the list of available networks. I can log on to the coffee shop next door, so I know the wireless card is working properly. Other XP laptops in the office see the the network in the list and can log on with out incident. I also tried to manually connect by going to Network and Sharing Center > Manage Wireless Networks > Add > putting in the ssid, Security Type of WPA2-Personal, Encryption Type of AES, and the key. These are the same setting I used for the 2 XP laptops that can connect.

Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Rich

 

[G0AOZ]

Open Network and Sharing Center, then Manage Wireless Networks. If you still see the AP that you previously connected to listed, delete it. Now click on the WiFi icon in the Systemtray and see if it will re-detect the wanted AP.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[Rich24]

Hi Roger,

I already tried that, but I tried it again just to be sure. It is still not in there. Any other ideas??

 

[goombawaho]

This problem makes no sense. It's not possible that the wireless card and/or the access point is set to broadcast/receive the wrong wireless - e.g. Wireless N ONLY on the access point and the wireless card is only wireless G (or some combination like that).

I would download the latest driver for the wireless card, delete the wireless card from device manager, run CCleaner registry cleaner until no errors, reboot and reinstall the latest driver.

^^^Basically a voodoo cure, but what else can you do at this point?

 

[Rich24]

Hi Goomba,

This laptop is at a remote location and someone is dropping it off to me on Monday. I will give your suggestion a shot. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[goombawaho]

If all else fails, a new wireless card can likely be inserted either on the motherboard or in a card slot.

 

[Rich24]

Yeah, I thought of that too. I wish I had one to test it first. All the laptops have the wi-fi built in these days. I'm still trying to scrape one up.

 

[goombawaho]

No scraping. You're in charge. Buy one. Don't spend three hours on a 10 minute fix. I know, you want to KNOW that it is the fix.

 

[G0AOZ]

I agree with Goombawaho. Not cost effective to spend much more time on this... Try a small USB WiFi device it it - you'll know pretty quickly if it's going to work or not. And these devices are so small your user may not even notice it's plugged in!

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[goombawaho]

Well, I'm going to disagree with using a USB wifi card on a PERMANENT basis because they usually get damaged when picking up/sitting down the laptop and often damage the USB port. But, for diagnosing a problem - they're just the ticket to have in your toolbox or for computers that need to be temporarily connected to wifi (like desktops).

 

[Rich24]

Hi all, I finally figured it out. The AP was broadcasting in 'a' only. The laptop's wifi is b/g/n. I don't know why this was set this way, but all is well now that we changed the AP to b/g/n. Thanks for all of your help.

Rich

 

[goombawaho]

I believe I offered that as a suggestion above.

 

[Rich24]

Yes Goomba, you did suggest that, but it took a while before I could pin down our network guy to look at it. Again, thank you all for all of your suggestions!