T400 Intel 5300 AGN WiFi can't enable device on Windows 7

[ben2e]

After an XP to Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade, wifi is broken. The yellow antenna light next to the bluetooth light at the bottom of the screen is lit. Wired neworking works but not Wifi. I've downloaded the latest Intel driver but when I troubleshoot it gives error messages such as "the device is not enabled".

I've scoured forums and tried a few things.

1. Uninstall the driver, uninstall Thinkvantage Connection Manager, reboot, reinstall driver, connection manager.

2. Turn off wireless-n (someone previously posted a solution that involved disabling wireless n).

3. Disabled the ability to disable the device on the power manager.

4. Lowered the antenna power (it was on high).

5. Verified the device in enabled in the bios.

6. Hit fn-F5 (which seems to do nothing)

7. Checked the switch in the front (the yellow light does turn off if I slide it left).

If you start up Thinkvantage Access Connections, it shows zero wireless access points and I know I have a few neighbors besides me who have wireless routers. My mac finds my router (a D-Link DIR-655) just fine. A few folks mentioned that the cards do go but it seems strange. The computer rarely leaves the house.  Anyone have a suggestion of something I may have missed ?

[JameZ]

Hi ben2e,

Do run the ThinkVantage System Update on your T400 as it seems you have miss out a few drivers as your Fn + F5 keys is not mapped.

After you have done so, try pressing Fn + F5 and try to turn on the Wireless device from there.

Several things to check

1. In devmgmt.msc, is it turned on?
2. manual installation of WLAN driver via site

//JameZ

[ben2e]

Thanks Jamie,

I ran the update which did download quite a few things.

Fn-F5 now works and shows wireless is off. The button to turn it on does not turn it on but the bluetooth button does toggle that on and off.

In the device manager, the status shows the device is working properly.

I tried uninstaltling the driver (I had a more recent one from MS but installed the Lenovo one). No change there.

[JameZ]

Hi ben2e,

Kindly try to uninstall ThinkVantage Access Connections and see if it helps.

If issue still persist, do try a manual installation of the WLAN driver (uninstall in control panel --> reboot --> open devmgmt.msc --> search for hardware --> extract driver --> install driver.)

//JameZ

[ben2e]

OK. I have uninstalled the Access Connections software several times but not of course after doing the Thinkvantage update. The only other curious thing is when I unstall the Wifi driver using the uninstall button, it often will automatically reinstall it either on reboot or just on it's own discover hardware.

Is it important to use the driver coming from Lenovo or is the Intel 5300 driver sufficient (or better) ?

[ben2e]

Still no luck. Same symptoms. Driver properties shows the device is enabled and working. Fn F5 show's it's disabled and won't turn it on.

It is a bit peculiar that when I uninstall the driver, it seems to re-install the same driver automatically without me doing anything. I was finally able to get the new version 13.2.0 installed but unfortunately, no different result.

[Maliha Community Moderator]

If I were you I would burn a Live CD of any popular linux distro and boot from it, and if the wireless doesn't work in linux then the card is probably broken and would need to be replaced.

Hope it helps.

[ben2e]

Will do. I have a Knoppix CD (who knows if it has drivers). Wish there was a more straightforward way to tell.

[ben2e · Accepted solution]

Solution: Booted into Safe Mode, uninstalled wireless drivers, reinstalled them. Victory !

I suppose it shouldn't have been this difficult but I'm glad the safe mode worked.