HP Pavvilion Laptop Wireless Problem

The blue light should not go off unless you physically turn off wireless. Return it.

mstrspy hath wroth:

Google doesn't find anything under "HP 4265". Wanna try again on the model number?

No way. The blue light is just a DC power indicator showing that the wireless is enabled. If it's going on and off without any user action, you have problem. There's a push button in the keyboard area somewhere that turns the wireless on and off. Some laptops have a slide switch. It's possible that the slide switch or push button is loose, or the connector going to the switch is loose. There's also a keyboard combination that turns on and off the wireless. In addition, there's an appication somewhere that automagically selects between the ethernet port and the wireless. I forgot the name. If you have something plugged into the ethernet port, and it is also loose, then the wireless light will go on and off.

Two of them what? Two router? Two laptops? Two foots?

Since it's a new laptop, my guess(tm) is that there's something busted inside. Use the force, er... warranty.

Incidentally, one of my customers bought a brand new HP Z-something laptop around Christmas. SMART utilities showed that the hard disk was generating errors continuously and that the drive was about to fail. It's now 2 months later and it's still working and merrily generating new bad sectors. HP won't replace the drive until the drive completely fails. I'm not very happy with HP.

Jeff Liebermann hath wroth:

I just remembered that I took home a customers HP Pavilion dv4230US laptop. It should be similar to whatever you have. There's a blue light in the middle of the hinge. Just in front of the hinge is a push button which turns the wireless on and off. There's also a system tray application called "HP Wireless Assistant" which seems to control on screen notifications and not much else.

I tried turning off the access point and running my microwave oven and cordless phone to see if I could get the blue light to flash. Nothing. It's lit even when there's no connection or wireless access point in the area.

When I plugged in a wired ethernet connection, it aquired an IP address and did NOT disconnect the wireless link. Weird. The blue light stayed on.

Before you return your laptop under warranty, try reseating the MiniPCI card. Unplug the laptop power glob, remove the battery, flip over the laptop, and unscrew the door that covers the wireless card. Don't mangle the coax antenna connections. Remove the MiniPCI (probably Broadcom) wireless card and reinstall it very carefully. Try wireless again. Maybe it's just a loose connection.

Hi Jeff: Sorry about the number. It is the 4170. I called HP tech support and they walked me through the problem. The device drivers needed to be re installed. The light now stays on.

Actually I'm impressed with Hp's tech support. I had an issue with my daughter's laptop and they repaired it in two days. I had to Fedex it to HP (at their expense) and received it repaired in two days.

mstrspy hath wroth:

Huh? A bad or corrupted driver causes the wireless card to turn on and off? Not an update but the same pre-installed drivers? Well, that's a new one for me.

I suspect that if the failure was clear and obvious, they would not have a problem with repairing it. In my hard disk case, only the non-HP diagnostics showed a problem. I had a similar problem with a Dell Inspiron 3000 which came with a Maxtor SATA drive that was obviously failing. Dell would not replace it until their own utilities demonstrated a total failure. They then sent an on-site service technician to the customers, replaced the drive with a new blank drive, and drove away. I got to reload and restore everything. Sony did effectively the same thing when a Vaio desktop drive failed. Grrrr....

Fortunately, I don't deal with warranty issues very often. My customers do the groundwork and I only get involved in the ones that turn into horror stories. It could also be my total lack of tact and diplomacy when on the phone with support. It's gratifying to see that someone at least gets decent warranty service. Congrats.

Incidentally, and unrelated: Favorite free S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic report utility:

bottom screenshot. It's caught several dying hard disks before they completely crashed.

Well on an HP Tablet PC, there is no real switch, it's a soft-switch in the Q menu. I had a tablet where I just couldn't get the wireless to come on, even with installing the latest drivers from Intel for the Mini-PCI card. Eventually I reinstalled the OS from scratch, and the wireless started working properly. So I guess it can be a driver or OS issue as well, even though I've never seen the light flashing on and off.

I guess I spoke too soon. It still looses the blue light but when the light goes out, i still have connectivity to the internet. I am really mistified over this issue.

mstrspy hath wroth:

My best guess is still that that either the MiniPCI wireless card is loose in its socket, or that some connector involved in wireless is loose. Try re-seating the wireless card. However, don't mess furthur with the drivers or operating system. That part is apparently working.

Sigh. Open both panels. One is for adding memory. The other is for the wireless. The wireless card is usually near the corner of the laptop near the hinge.