X220 not recognising wi-fi card? [ Edited ]

[mattie_g]

Hi all

First post here, hello to everyone!

I've just received an X220 with 160Gb SSD, it was from the UK outlet site but was described as new.

It powered up nicely and W7 64bit Pro came up with a few setings to fix, but for some reason it will not find a wireless card.

It finds bluetooth, device manager and Lenovo's own network manager tools all find the bluetooth and ethernet, but no wi-fi.  The physical switch works (i.e. the machine recognises when it's on and off) and bluetooth turns off with the switch.  There's a small icon light for bluetooth and wi-fi, bluetooth lightdsup OK but the wi-fi has never lit up.

The standard build list shows 2 flavours of wi-fi, but I'm not sure if it's simply a wrong driver - surely the device manager in W7 would notice the card, even if it was faultily installed or disabled?

Any thoughts on how to fix?

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

go into your bios menu, under security and I/O port access make sure your wireless card is enabled.

If that don't work, maybe you should check whether the wireless card is connected and present, it is located under the palmrest.

[mattie_g]

Ta for pointer - I'll have a look in BIOS tonight.

(Apols for putting in wrong forum, I googled to find the forum and didn't notice there was another for the non-tablet variants)

[alex1906 Support Specialist - Retired]

Hello mattie_g,

 Also check the device manager and see if there is a section with wireless on it.  There could also be a chance that if these don't fix the problem that the wireless card was not properly positioned in the computer.

Please let us know how it goes.

Hope this helps,

Alex

[mattie_g]

Many thanks for advice - the Lenovo phone support managed to remote access the machine through an ethernet connection, and as they couldn't find the problem they booked a service engineer visit for tomorrow. Faulty hardware is suspected.

[alex1906 Support Specialist - Retired]

That's great.

Let us know how it goes.

I'm very interested to know what the solution to your problem is.

Alex

[mattie_g · Accepted solution]

No card installed!

Apparently some outlet variants have funny configs if they're built for subsequently cancelled orders. The technician fitted a card and all's well.

[alex1906 Support Specialist - Retired]

That would definitely be a good reason it wouldn't connect.

Now we know that some outlet variants have different configurations, as you previously stated.

I'm glad you got it fixed.

Alex

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

lot of machines for large companies have no wireless cards (or bluetooth, or wwan) present in the machine to increase corporate information security.