Wireless network adapter gone: Vista. Dell Pavillion laptop?

Question

I'm usually the techy, so I'll let someone else onto the playground. Dell Pavillion laptop. DV2000 series, I turned on the feature in the driver to make it always stay on and not power down, losing the network, due to previous problems. Power saving feature, I assumed that was taking the network down.

The entire DV series of Dell laptops is flawed wirelessly apparently. The blue "on" stays on and the adapter disappeared along with all wireless connectivity. No restore point for this Vista machine, Ugh. Re-installing the Wireless assistant and driver are fail. Just the always on, happy blue light special light attached to "no sale". I need to uninstall the driver settings, somehow. HP is near class action status on their wireless for this broadcomm series, I'm near a complete reinstall over a simple driver. HELP!

Answer 1

If the re-install of the systems drivers isn't helping you or a complete re-install of the software itself isn't working, your best bet is just a simple re-image of your OS.  Problem solved.

Answer 2

Try pushing Fn+F2. This is the hotkey to enable/diable your wireless connection. Also check your device manager. If there is a big yellow questionmark next to the wireless network driver theres something wrong. If theres a red X, then its just disabled and need to be turned back on.

Answer 3

go into device manager and uninstall the adapter completely.  then restart the computer and vista should find it on its own and reinstall what it perceives to be the appropriate drivers.  this has worked for me with my hp good luck.