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.

I have a Toshiba Satellite 1415 Series notebook and I wanted to know how I know if it’s already equipped with wireless. My owner’s manual isn’t much help to me…. so any suggestions?

First of all, start the laptop and to turn on the wireless switch. On Toshiba Satellite 1415 it’s located on the right side, under the floppy drive. If the LED close to the switch lights, then you have wireless card installed.

If you think that your laptop has a wireless card, you also can check it in the device manager. To access the device manager follow the path: Start – Control panel – System – Hardware – Device Manager. In there find a network adapters line. If you have a wireless card installed, it should be listed.

The easiest way to check if the laptop is already equipped with wireless antennas, is to remove the wireless card cover on the bottom of the laptop. The wireless card slot is located close to the memory slots. If the laptop is wireless ready, then you should see 2 wires (black and white) located under the cover (left top corner on the step 5). These wires are wireless card antennas; the white wire connects to a main connecter and the black on to an auxiliary connector. If you don’t have a wireless card installed, then you can buy it if you search by the part number. Toshiba part number for your model would be P000339520. I just searched here and found this wireless card for $60.

I have just put an Atheros mini PCI card in my Satellite A40 as it didn’t actually come with internal wireless from the factory. I also got some Hitachi mini antenna off eBay but they’re crap!

It had a mini PCI slot but no internal antenna, so you could say it wasn’t wireless ready. Fitting the mini PCI was a piece of cake (as was the ram and DVD burner).

I just wonder if anyone has put Toshiba internal antennas into a Satellite A40, I believe they go behind the LCD monitor. I also wonder if I can get maybe a complete LCD monitor from another model which has the antenna or simply get the wires and put them in by themselves.

I didn’t see much about A40s on your website and my other upgrades, DVD (DL) burner and more ram took a bit more research than I thought!

You are right, the internal wireless card antennas located behind the LCD screen. You will have to remove the LCD screen in order to install the antennas. Here’s a disassembly guide for Toshiba Satellite A45 display assembly, I think it would be the same for Satellite A40. There is no clear picture of the wireless antennas, the best shot is on the step 27. The white and black cables, taped to the LCD cover are wireless antennas. Check out other display disassembly guides on Irisvista, so you can get a better idea how run the wires.

I have a Toshiba Satellite A55-s326 and 2 days ago my wireless card stopped working or something like that, this is what it does.
The computer with the wireless indication on the bar is with an “x” and always appears that the computer can’t connect with the wireless net, I open it and click on connect and seems that is working but after a while doesn’t do anything.
After many tries I decided to try with a wireless PCI and that work.
Can I test my internal wireless card in any form or what can I do to know if I have to replace my internal wireless card?
I don’t know any test utility for testing a wireless card. The only way to test it is trying to connect to a good working wireless access point.

First of all, check if wireless antenna switch on the side of your laptop is turned on and the Wi-Fi LED lights up. I know that this advice sounds funny, but I’ve seen some people who didn’t know about this little Wi-Fi switch on the side even though they owned the laptop for months.
You should check if the wireless card is seated properly. If you carry the laptop a lot, it’s possible that the wireless card popped out from the connector. You can easily access the wireless card from the bottom and check if it seated properly. Reseat it just in case. When you remove the card, check if the connectors are oxidized or dirty, clean them if needed. If you turn over the laptop, you’ll find the wireless card under the hatch in the lower right corner.
I would also try to reinstall the wireless card driver. You can download it from Toshiba website or reload it from the restore CD.

I have a Toshiba TE2100 that I am content with except for two things: a) no internal 802.11g b) the small 20Gig hard drive.
Is there an 802.11b/g card that will fit and function in the TE2100?
Does anyone know what the largest hard drive the bios will support?

Toshiba Tecra TE2100 supports an internal 802.11b wireless card. Here are the original Toshiba part numbers for the internal wireless card: V000010820 or P000339520. The wireless card slot is located under the keyboard. Before you buy a new wireless card, I would recommend removing the laptop keyboard and checking if you actually have wireless antenna cables installed. Make sure that the laptop is running the latest version of BIOS; there have been an update for wireless support in version 1.40.
Toshiba TE2100 laptop supplied with 20GB, 30GB, 40GB and 60GB hard drives installed. I don’t think that you’ll see any problem when you upgrade the hard drive. I would say that you can use any newer laptop hard drive, including 80GB and 100GB. From my experience, if a laptop recognizes 20GB hard drive, it will recognize any bigger hard drive. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any official information for upgrading hard drives in older notebooks.