Why's the wi-fi died?

[swee'pea99]

My daughter's Vaio suddenly can't find the internet. The wi-fi's not working. I've been to device manager and there's one of those wee yellow ! by the 'isatap.belkin', which I'm assuming is the internal wi--fi gizmo. Right-click on properties - 'device is not working because drivers are not installed'. Go to drivers details - some Microsoft default driver. Try uninstalling the device, thinking that when I restrat, Windows will automatically detecet it and install the driver. Nope. Restart, same situation - isatap.belkin with the ! and the driver problem.

Ah ha! thinks I, there's an option to 'update driver', which of course you can only use when you're online. Plug it in uising an RJ45, go online, update drivers. Nope. Even with the RJ45, it won't go online. Any suggestions?

 

[moggsy100]

Best bet is to go on system restore and just turn the laptop back a few days or weeks to a time you know it was definately working.. That should hopefully sort it..
Has she downloaded anything or changed any settings that might of caused it??

 

[2Loose]

Firstly stupid question: Is there a physical switch to turn wifi on and off?

Second...is Vaio Lan Manager on the machine and running? If so, it can cause conflicts with the Windows Wifi stuff so turn it off\remove it or turn off the Windows stuff instead.

Apparently an update just randomly turns the Lan Manager software on, even when it was previously turned off. You cannot run both sets of wifi driver (Microsoft's and Sony's) at the same time.

 

[ColinJ]

Firstly stupid question: Is there a physical switch to turn wifi on and off?

Not such a stupid question. I had a similar problem with my Dell, until I finally remembered that I'd turned Wifi off to cut down the power consumption - d'oh!

 

[swee'pea99]

System restore - sorted it in one! Thanks a lot. A bit embarassing - one of those classic d'oh why didn't I think of that? moments. But it's all a-ok again, so many thanks.

 

[moggsy100]

your welcome... nice to see im good for something on here..lol.. happy surfing again...