How to know if my laptop has wireless internet?
I need to know if my laptop has wireless internet. It is a Toshiba and it looks kind of old. So I don’t really know how to tell.
Take a closer look at your laptop. Do you have a wireless switch somewhere on the side? Does the LED by the switch light up if you turn on the switch? If it does, you have an internal wireless card installed.
Here’s another way. Take a look at the device manager. All laptop hardware components are listed in the device manager.
Right click on My Computer, click on Manage, click on Device Manager. Click on the “+” sign by the Network adapters. Do you see an entry related to the wireless card adapter in there?
If you do, you have an internal wireless card installed.
January 24th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I have a dell studio laptop with wifi built in. What would I need to purchase to get that up and going? I know I would need a router, but would I need anything besides that since my laptop is already wifi capable? Thanks!
January 26th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Heather,
All you need is a wireless router. You connect the router to your DSL or cable modem and after that follow instructions to set it up.
Your laptop should detect the wireless router as soon as you turn it on.
February 1st, 2009 at 10:01 am
i have a sony vaio vgn-fs series laptop its wi-hangs up sometime after 2-3 hours of use.have to restart to make it work again .what do u think might be the problem?thanks a lot for site like this
February 18th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
i have a dell inspiron 1300 and i do not know if it is wireless or not i would be greatful if someone could let me know
thanks
February 24th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Just got a Gateway Solo 1450. How can I tell if it’s set up for wireless and if it is not what do I need other than a touter in my home
February 25th, 2009 at 6:34 am
My co-worker has a laptop that she takes from work to home and back again. She accesses wireless from home and has to plug back in to a landline when she gets back to work. The laptop won’t allow internet access once she plugs back in. She has already turned off the wireless switch to no avail. Any ideas?
March 10th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
i have tosheba satalite laptop i need to know is my laptop built in wireless card or not because i don’t have a ket for wireless but i have something like a circle but not a key have a sympole for wireless
so would you please let me know how i can know my laptop has a wireless card or not
also i need to know is this laptop built on blotooth or not
and if i don’t have built in wireless card is the router can work insted of that or still need to bye a wireless card
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 am
I own a Lenovo Laptop 3000 G410. I use a broadband connection at my home using the RJ-11 port. My problem is that I cannot see any wireless network nor I can see the icon of Wifi at network connections page. This page shows only 2 icons: one for the broadband, which i mentioned earlier, and second is the LAN connection of RJ-45.
On running ipconfig /all at the command prompt, it yield me the following result:
Windows IP configuration:
Host Name : kk1
Primary DNS Suffix :
Node Type : Broadcast
IP Routing enabled : No
WINS Proxy enabled : No
Ethernet Adapter Local Area Conection:
Media State : Media disconnected
Description : Broadcom Netlink (TM) Fast Ethernet
Physical address : xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx
In device manager, I can see only one network adapter of Broadcom Netlink.
I have tried the key combination of “Fn+F5″ as per the manual,but the LED goes purple indicating that both Wifi and bluetooth are activated.
Please suggest a way out.
Thanx.
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:14 am
I have a sony vaio vgn cr322h I downgraded my OS from Vista to XP and i already downloaded and install the driver for the wirless adapter. Im having problem detecting a wireless connection on my laptop i know there is wirless connection cause my friends laptop can detect it. I followed ur guide i switch the wirless connection on and the LED light turns on and when i checked the device manager it shows that LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g PCI-E Adapter. My friend told me that there is no wireless card installed but my brother who bought the laptop told me that it is wifi ready.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:19 am
I have a Dell Studio 1535 Series. It is unable to locate any networks to connect to. The switch is on and other laptops in office can connect via wireless. Any suggestions??
June 28th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
hey i dont have wifi function on my laptop but i believe that i could install a wifi receiver, am i right?
July 24th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I have a Toshiba laptop purchased in 2002, from what you know, do you think it has a built in wireless card?
August 1st, 2009 at 9:04 am
i just want to know? if i purchased a dell laptop and it doesn’t have wifi is there any other way to get internet other than an ethernet…
thank you…
August 12th, 2009 at 6:12 am
I’ve got Macbook with me ,,, it that i have got a parallel Desktop where i have installed Xp… well my question is i have a builtin wifi and i can very well use it when m working on Macintosh,,, but when i switch on to Xp on the same laptop i can’t find and wifi connections or drivers too… i did check my network adapters but in that also i cant find any wireless cards ,,, can u pls give me any suggestions how do i get connected to my wifi connection
thanks
Dishant
August 12th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Dishant,
I didn’t understand this part of the question. Where you have XP installed?
If your computer has a wireless card installed but it doesn’t work, make sure the wireless card is ENABLED. Check the Network Connections properties and enable the wireless card if needed.
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:16 am
I have a Dell E1705 laptop with a suspected bad wireless card. I haven’t used the wireless in two months, but while using it two months ago and earlier, it did always seem to be going down hill. I returned from a trip (where I had wired internet) and when I turned my laptop on, the wireless wouldn’t turn on and when using the Intel ProSet Wireless program that I use to access wireless, it tells me there is no wireless device installed. So two questions, technically, is there any specific way to test the card before I buy a new one (because they are definitely not cheap), and if I do buy another one, do you know of any upgrades that would work better?
Thank you very much.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:21 am
I have a satellite 1135-s1552 when I got it the screen was pink.I hooked my dsl line to it and updated all the microsoft updates.I started having problems,so I put a fresh copy of xp pro.then my screen quit working. I can shine a flashlight at the screen and see everything also the thing that tells your display to turn off an on . If fiddle with it the screen comes on for a second or so. and if hooked to a monitor it works great. when i installed the new os did it lack the driver software. and if that is so could that also be why I have no wi-fi. does this laptop come with wireless built in? thanks for any help you can give.
April 4th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Hi,
I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 – the wireless had been working. Now,when I view available networks, none of them show up (and the signal graphs fromt he networks aren’t showing). I am getting the WiFi signal light on the computer. Is there a switch involved for the wireless on this laptop, or could the card be bad or should I download updated drivers? Thank you.
June 10th, 2010 at 5:23 am
I’ve checked my laptop and I have wireless internet. How do I access the internet when I take my laptop to Tim Horten’s or the Library?
June 7th, 2011 at 3:13 am
how do i know if my PC has wi-fi