[Yuanrang]

Right, I need some help since I'm basically clueless about what the problem is or what to do.

First of all, I'm hardly gifted when it comes to technical knowledge, which is basically why I'm posting here in hope of other, and more knowledgeable, people to help me out with my problems. Secondly, I'm using a new laptop bought under 2 months ago meaning that I'm not all too familiar with it, nor am I familiar at all with MS Vista either, so that really haven't helped me out.

Anyway, I'm using a HP Pavilion 9500 Notebook PC and running Microsoft Vista Home Premium.

I'm not really sure what happened though. I was on the computer as normal, running mIRC and MSN Messenger as usual, playing World of Warcraft and the connection just fell out. Now this is a normal occurance which I didn't think much about since we had quite a lot of storms going on this weekend, so I figured the connection just fell out due to the blizzard. So after an hour of waiting for the connection to return, I just shut the computer off and trod off to simply sit down and read while I waited for the storm to settle.
When I came back, this awaited me:

http://img174.images...workcarden1.png

It's in Norwegian, so it might be a tad hard to understand, but that's basically the units in my network card after I checked it in unit-management (or whatever the english term for it is), and as you can see, 12 out of 13 got issues.
When I click the properities of each single one, it says something like "The unit is not working as intending because Windows can't download the necessary drivers for this unit. (Code 31)" (translated from norwegian).
So I tried to download new drivers, but either I got the wrong ones or it didn't work, because the problem didn't fix itself.

So I have a few questions really.

1: Is my wireless network-card working or is it infact broken and that's causing the problems?
2: If the network-card is working, what is the issue and how can I fix it so I can access the internet again?
3: If I have to find the right drivers, where would I find that? (I tried googling for it, going to the Intel-website to find the right ones, but I must have gotten the wrong ones, so which drivers would I need? Links would be great.)
4: Is there anything else I should look into?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :-)

Edited by Yuanrang, 25 February 2008 - 05:03 PM.

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As you mentioned a thunderstorm around the time the problem began, a 'fried' network card has to be a strong contender. This happened to me in a thunderstorm recently. network cards are cheap enough so I fitted a new one and was back in business. However, since yours is a notebook it's not that easy. let's hope it's just the drivers that have got corrupted, because a new network adaptor for a notebook requires the services of a repair technician.

All the drivers for your notebook, as with all laptops and notebooks, are provided by the manufacturer on their support website.
The Norwegian HP website is here: http://welcome.hp.co...no/welcome.html

Sorry I can only link you to the main page, but I don't read Norwegian, so you''ll have to navigate to the drivers pages as best you can.

[pip22]

As you mentioned a thunderstorm around the time the problem began, a 'fried' network card has to be a strong contender. This happened to me in a thunderstorm recently. network cards are cheap enough so I fitted a new one and was back in business. However, since yours is a notebook it's not that easy. let's hope it's just the drivers that have got corrupted, because a new network adaptor for a notebook requires the services of a repair technician.

All the drivers for your notebook, as with all laptops and notebooks, are provided by the manufacturer on their support website.
The Norwegian HP website is here: http://welcome.hp.co...no/welcome.html

Sorry I can only link you to the main page, but I don't read Norwegian, so you''ll have to navigate to the drivers pages as best you can.

[Yuanrang]

The beforementioned "storm" was a snowstorm, or blizzard if you want. We're haunted more by them then thunder, so I'm afraid it didn't get fried or anything, I would have taken that in concideration if it was one.

I'll give it a shot though and try the drivers and let you know what happened.

[jeffk813]

Generally, drivers don't just disappear or stop working. Also, it looks as if more than one device is malfunctioning. I see in your picture an Intel wireless a/b/g network card, a bluetooth card and an ethernet NIC all with issues.

Hardware does fail from time to time.

Probably the easiest thing to do would be to try replacing the wireless card; this would be the first thin I'd do. The wireless card on your laptop is a module that installs into a slot on the underside of the computer beneath a cover. These cards are simple to replace, readily available, and dirt cheap. Here's a link to the service manual. In it you will find parts listings and images of the unit: http://h10032.www1.h...l/c01295898.pdf

The cards are available on eBay for as little as 16.99 USD.

Edited by jeffk813, 25 February 2008 - 03:45 PM.

[Yuanrang]

Don't think that because your computer wasn't plugged in that it can't have been damaged by a storm. A wireless network card is a radio transceiver and as such it can be damaged by very strong electromagnetic pulses. Lightning bolts give off these pulses and it's indeed possible for a close lightning strike to generate a strong enough pulse to fry nearby electrical equipment. Especially if that equipment is designed to receive radio signals.

The issue though, as I see it, is that I never knew that snow could lead electromagnetic pulses through blizzards.
Let me assure you, it was no lightning which is the cause of this, simply because I haven't experienced that in atleast 4-5 months. I guess I'm just too used to refer to blizzards as storms since they're frankly so to say the only form of storms we face in the mountain-areas of Norway.

Now since I doubt this is connected to the storm in any way (in fact, for all I know, it might have stopped working and I assumed it was the storm. They were common that weekend after all, so it's easy to jump to conclusions), I still wonder how all that could happen though. During Summer 2007, the Router got messed up because of lightning, but as I noticed then, that was fully dead and not even somewhat operating. From what the wireless assistant tells me when I log on, I do have a Bluetooth-connection yet I don't have the wireless-connection, meaning one work and the other doesn't, meaning I believe the card shouldn't be dead, yet I have no clue if I'm assuming the right thing.

Currently downloading the drivers atm, been a tad busy this evening.

[jeffk813]

Yes, sorry, I initially misread your post concerning the storm, but removed that statement from my reply. I was just saying that it's possible for the hardware to have failed. I've seen that happen as often as I've seen software get buggy.

Oh, and the Bluetooth working but the Wireless not working is not surprising. They're different cards.

Edited by jeffk813, 25 February 2008 - 04:06 PM.

[Yuanrang]

Yeah I saw you did afterwards, but I left it there as a disclaimer since you were the second to assume so.
I don't entirely rule out hardware malfunction myself, which basically is why I'm posting here to clarify if it is or not. I just find it somewhat weird that my Bluetooth is working, yet the wireless connection isn't, and it's even stranger when I think about how the computer haven't even been used for 2 months yet.

Just to clarify, I got it to work again. Turned out it wasn't the network card after all, it just needed a solid patching, so when I found that one out, I just did a restore of those. I'm still clueless on how 12 of them got knocked out at the same time when there was no Vista update for it or anything, but..

Anyway, from the bottom of my heart, thanks to the two of you who put me towards fixing the thing, you just made me happy.

Edited by Yuanrang, 25 February 2008 - 05:03 PM.