Laptop refuses to detect anything wireless, ethernet works fine

brienza112 · 23 Jul 2012

Recently I performed a reinstallation of windows on my laptop. Normally I had no problems with the wireless, but after the reinstallation my laptop refuses to acknowledge that there are wireless networks. When I'm not connected to the internet, it asks to connect using a wire connection only.

I have a Dell Inspiron iM101z running Windows 7 Home Premium, and I downloaded all the drivers for what the Dell website told me my laptop model was, a Dell Inspiron 1121. Attached is a picture showing the oddities of my problem. The icon on the taskbar shows that I have to connect with an ethernet cord; no wireless icon is shown.

If I try to unplug the ethernet cable and connect to the internet, I only get the option to do a broadband connection. Also, once I unplug the cable, I get "no connections available."

chev65 · 23 Jul 2012

Most likely this is still a driver problem.

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

Or, http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?...&advsrch=False

Ztruker · 23 Jul 2012

Make sure the Wireless is enabled. Obvious but often overlooked.

To enable or disable wireless, press Fn + F2.

Also, with the Ethernet cable connected, do A Windows Update then Check for updates.
Click on Optional updates and see if there are any there four your wireless. If so, install them.

brienza112 · 23 Jul 2012

The wireless key is enabled, I updated everything, and I reinstalled all of the drivers related to wireless. However, I still have the same problem.

Ztruker · 24 Jul 2012

Did you try the Windows Update?

What does Device Manager look like, any yellow marks?

brienza112 · 24 Jul 2012

Ztruker said:

Did you try the Windows Update?

What does Device Manager look like, any yellow marks?

Under the Device Manager, it seems that the network controller doesn't have drivers installed. However, I get an error when I try to update the driver, and manually downloading them hasn't worked either. Everything points to a driver issue but I just can't seem to get the right one.

On newegg, I bought this laptop as a Dell Inspiron iM101z. On the dell website this model doesn't exist, but the automatic detection tells me I have an Inspiron 1121. Could this be related to the problem?

EDIT: I solved the problem. One of the drivers was extracted after downloading, but I had to go manually into the drivers folder to launch the application to install them. Everything works now, thanks for the help everybody.

tombrom · 05 Jul 2013

Thanks so much for posting the solution to this problem. I had the exact same problem. R252293 was the driver folder in case anyone else needs this solution. Then double click on DPInst64. No idea why you have to do this manually.