"How do you turn on the network card in a laptop" Topic

My wife has managed to turn the network card off. I don't mean disable, I mean turn it off. We don't know how, but we are guessing a key combo (she put presents on top).

I've disabled the re-enabled it, but no joy.

Any ideas?

make sure the laptop is plugged into power. Several models cut power to the NIC to save battery.

The two most common ways I have encountered are either a function key plus the number key with a picture of an antenna, or a physical button or slide switch located on one of the sides.

If you have not solved this yet, knowing the model number might help.

Is this on a Windows machine? Could be turned off in the BIOS. If it is turned off there then the operating system will not find it. Watch the splash screen when booting to enter setup, CMOS or BIOS. Then look through the settings for the NIC and make sure it is one.

Then go to system settings and have it check for new hardware( although it should already have found it).

Last Hussar,

My wife did the same some weeks back and it was as Waco Joe has said, there was a function key along the top of the keyboard that had been depressed.

As with many things switching the laptop off resolved it as I noticed the wifi light had been orange beforehand then went back to green once I rebooted. Assuming she was unlikely to have deliberately altered setting in the Control Panel I played with all the buttons till I found the right one that turned it on and off.

Depends on the laptop. My old one had a physical switch to turn it off and on. I suspect a lot of the network devices these days can be controlled by a setting in the bios. You can usually enter the bios on boot by hitting a key. The laptop usually says "hit <key> to enter bios" or something.

<key> could be F2 F10 or delete. All common keys to enter the bios. each laptop is different.

If you are seeing the driver (you said you could disable and enable it) then the card may be turned "on" already but needs to be configured/reconfigured. Probably the manual will be able to shed some light on the matter. they usually have instructions for configuring components for the popular operating systems (ie Windows).

John

It repowered (is that a word) when she restarted the machine, as per Stenic's answer.

I did look for the Fn+'Antennae' option- as soon as she said it was turned off – knew exactly what I was looking for because mine has that key…

… hers doesn't!

Don't want to fiddle with the BIOS really, especially as it was done under windows – like I said, she put something on the keyboard. Just really want to knw for next time she does it.