Windows 7 Why doesn't my wireless work after upgrading to windows 7?

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peterspliid

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I just bought a new packard bell netbook Link Removed

As I first turned it on, it had windows xp installed on it where everything worked including the wireless. Then I upgraded it to windows 7, after which the wireless didn't seem to work at all. First it didnt have any drivers for the device, so I downloaded the windows 7 driver for Wirelss LAN Atheros HB95 on packard bell's site. Now it has installed the drivers successfully, but it says "no connections are available" when i search for a network. There is no wireless switch on this laptop, so there is no way to turn it off.

Strangely, wireless works when I plug in a d-link wireless adapter. So my netbook cant find any wiress connections from the built in wireless adapter, but can from the dlink adapter, How do I fix this?
 
Solution
If the netbook came pre-installed with XP, then you would want to make sure that all your hardware drivers especially chipset drivers were updated and compatible with Windows 7. So you may want to follow up with the driver updates from either the packard bell site or the manufacturer's website for a particular hardware device.
Additionally the wireless network device seems to be pretty common in several netbooks from several different manufacturers, Acer, Gateway, as well as packard bell. What is the driver version that you currently have installed? The latest one I could find was 8.0.0.225 dated October last year (Win 7 RTM release date) I would have hoped a newer version would have been released by now, but I can't seem to find...
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Your internet connection will appear if you turn on the router. The router must be properly set with IPv4 and DNS data, while in your wireless adapter IPv4 and DNS must be set to "Automatic".
 
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If the netbook came pre-installed with XP, then you would want to make sure that all your hardware drivers especially chipset drivers were updated and compatible with Windows 7. So you may want to follow up with the driver updates from either the packard bell site or the manufacturer's website for a particular hardware device.
Additionally the wireless network device seems to be pretty common in several netbooks from several different manufacturers, Acer, Gateway, as well as packard bell. What is the driver version that you currently have installed? The latest one I could find was 8.0.0.225 dated October last year (Win 7 RTM release date) I would have hoped a newer version would have been released by now, but I can't seem to find one.
I don't usually recommended using Windows Updates to get hardware working, but if you have the option to either use a wired connection, or a usb wireless dongle, perhaps give Windows Update a try.
Finally, type ncpa.cpl into the search box and hit enter, select then right click your wireless adapter and choose properties, at the top of the properties dialog box click the configure button and on the resultant dialog box choose the advanced tab at the top, scroll if necessary and see if there is anything under the advanced configuration that may help. Sometimes on some devices there is a selection here for Radio Off/On and sometimes believe it or not it defaults to off. So it's worth checking.
 
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Solution
Thank you for the thorough reply. I have updated each and every driver from packard bell's site, and according to the device manager, all devices should be working. The latest driver version of the wireless network device, is as you stated, 8.0.0.225 for windows 7 32bit. Downloaded it directly from packartd bell's driver site.

As stated, I did manage to connect to the internet with the d-link wireless adapter. I have updated windows 7 with the 'windows update' tool several times; all updates are completed. So all updates are installed and I have updated some drivers with windows update as well.

At last all settings seem to be fine under the device settings. There is however no Radio Off/On setting I could check, but the rests seem to be fine. My netbook is still not able to find any wireless networks. The Wireless router works, as all other computers in this household are able to connect to the internet. Thank you for the reply though
 
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Sorry that, that wasn't helpful.
Check for third party software, especially something like a third party wireless management utility from the PC manufacturer, that may be conflicting with the built-in utility provided with Windows 7. Consider uninstalling any such program.
Check the router and make sure that if it has a UPnP option that it is enabled.
Type services.msc into the search box and hit enter
Scroll down and check UPnP Device Host, right click and choose start. You may even consider changing the startup type to Automatic.
Scroll down and check WLAN AutoConfig, right click and choose start. Set it to automatic by double clicking and changing the startup type.
See if that helps at all
 
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This is a very clean copy of windows, so it did not come with any 3rd party wireless utilities. I did however look through all programs installed, but didn't manage to find any.

I followed to instructions you gave me, but unfortunately they don't seem to have an effect on the wireless. I still get the exact same message: "No connections are available". Thank you very much for helping though, really appreciate it
 
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I know that you said originally that there was no button on the netbook to turn on or off the wireless radio, but are you sure that there is not a key combination involving a function key that could be used to do this.
Does the manufacturer support the upgrade that you performed from XP to Win7, if so then perhaps you might initiate a trouble ticket with the manufacturer to see if they have any insight.
Also, just to try one last thing, have you tried booting into safemode with networking just to see if that produces any other results?
 
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There is a key combination to turn off/on wireless, which is [fn] f2. The f2 button has a small red wireless antenna symbol on it, but if I press the combination, nothing seems to happen. Still the same 'no connections are available message'. I was thinking that it might be the problem, since all fn key combinations work besides the wireless switch. It didn't make a difference to boot in safe mode with networking. Same problem.

I just called their support line to see if they had a solution. They just asked if I have installed the correct driver and if the wireless lamp was on. So they concluded that I had to go back to windows xp...
 
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There is a key combination to turn off/on wireless, which is [fn] f2. The f2 button has a small red wireless antenna symbol on it, but if I press the combination, nothing seems to happen.
Click to expand...
If you use the key combo and the wireless light doesn't come on or go off, then I suspect that you may still be missing a system driver or perhaps an application with a built in driver that supports this functionality.
 
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I thought the same, but all other fn key combinations work such as volume, brightness, etc. I even remember installing all drivers for windows 7.

I chose to go back to windows xp, I doubt there is any easy solution to this. Now as it's running xp, wireless works fine again. Thank you very much for your effort though.
 
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