No Wireless Network Seen

Hi gang,

I have a homemade PC running Windows 7 Ultimate with SP1. I have 4 GB of RAM and the system is lightning fast. The ethernet connection works fine. However, when I plug in a USB wireless adapter and load it's software, it doesn't see my router. I tried a second and third USB wireless adapter and still the same result. I went into BIOS and checked the settings for anything specific about networking but didn't see anything of consequence. I then checked my motherboard jumpers for the USB ports. I know the ports work but I changed the jumpers to give the ports 5 volts. No change there. I then bought a PCI wireless board and installed it. I loaded the software and thought for sure this would solve my problem. The new PCI wireless board doesn't see anything wireless either. I am totally baffled. My only guess would be that somehow I have a corrupt install of W7. Am I missing something so basic that I'll have to go into hiding for the rest of my life when I find it or what? Do you have any ideas at all? Is there a software switch? A registry entry? I've tried ALL of the USB ports too. No joy.

Thanks.

Mike

Hi VistaKing. The device manager looks clean. In fact, it even showed the correct devices and all the drivers loaded correctly but no rf is detected. As for the devices, I have an SMC Networks 11n Wireless USB Adapter and a Verizon USB760 wireless adapter. Both devices work on my laptop as I tested them to make sure I didn't have TWO bad USB wireless devices. I bought the PCI module just to rule out the USB ports but even the PCI module doesn't detect the router. I changed the router so the it broadcast the SSID just to be sure that wasn't a potential problem. No difference. The PCI module is just a generic, dual-antenna 802.11 wireless LAN card. I did notice in the Event Viewer a number of errors with SNMP and NETLOGON but those may be caused by me unplugging the Ethernet cable and checking for wireless activity because I don't see those errors prior to me getting this problem.

It sounds like a major reset on the router is in order.

The 30-30-30 Hard Reset Rule for Routers

Same problem on two different routers in two different houses. Router isn't it. As I stated before, the USB wireless adapter works in my laptop; just not in this desktop. And to rule out the USB ports, I bought a PCI wireless card. Same problem.

Initially, I tried the USB software and that didn't do any good. I uninstalled it all and just plugged it in and let Windows find it. It grabbed a driver and reported it good in Device Manager and showed up fine in the task bar but it never saw any wireless activity at all when I tried both methods. I'm really beginning to wonder about this motherboard.

On a side note, I ran sfc /scannow and it reported corrupted files that it couldn't fix. As I stated I think in my first post, I'm wondering if I have a corrupt W7 install. I'm running chkdsk /r at the moment. It's only about 29 percent done and not breaking any speed records. It hung up at one point and chugged away for about 20 minutes on one cluster but it's moving forward again now.

I might have to take a peek at some sysinternals and see what I can glean there.

Harpazo said:

Initially, I tried the USB software and that didn't do any good. I uninstalled it all and just plugged it in and let Windows find it. It grabbed a driver and reported it good in Device Manager and showed up fine in the task bar but it never saw any wireless activity at all when I tried both methods. I'm really beginning to wonder about this motherboard.

On a side note, I ran sfc /scannow and it reported corrupted files that it couldn't fix. As I stated I think in my first post, I'm wondering if I have a corrupt W7 install. I'm running chkdsk /r at the moment. It's only about 29 percent done and not breaking any speed records. It hung up at one point and chugged away for about 20 minutes on one cluster but it's moving forward again now.

I might have to take a peek at some sysinternals and see what I can glean there.

I doubt the board is the problem.

If you aren't passing the sfc/scannow test you might try a repair install. You can expect plenty of problems until you can pass the scan. :)

Repair Install