why is wireless networking card not recognized after PC turned off ?

"Bob" hath wroth:

Can you supply some clues as to what manner of PC this card is installed? CPU and operating system would be nice. I'll assume a some kind of desktop running XP SP2.

Right click on "My Computah" on the desktop and select "Properties". Select the "Device Manager" tab. Under "View" select "Show hidden devices".

Do you have more than one listing for the DLink WDA-1320? If so, you get to unintall multiple versions of the driver. This is usually the result of walking the board through multiple PCI slots

It's also a bug in some driver installs. I suggest you download the latest driver from the DLink web pile and use it instead of what came in the box.

I don't recall if the install requires that you install the drivers before or after the card is installed in the PC. Whatever it says in the instructions, do it that way. If necessary, uninstall the driver, roll back the computer to it's previous state using: Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore to remove any traces of the driver. This is a bit drastic, but easy enough to do.

Appreciate any helpful thoughts on continuing saga on my Athlon 64 XP2.

After installing driver for the DLink WDA 1320, it operates fine until I turn off the machine twice. The first time I turn it off, the system recognizes the wireless connection, but the second time the wireless card is no longer seen by device manager.

Called DLink support. The said try another slot. Again, as with the other slot, it recognizes the card upon booting twice but third time it does not.

I doubt this is hardware problem. Any ideas why doesn't see the hardware dependably each time I boot it up?

"Bob" hath wroth:

Weird. I'm not so sure it's not hardware. Any possibility it's a heating problem? After it fails to recognize the card, unplug the machine and let it cool down. Note that I said *UNPLUG* the machine. The machine has WOL (wake on LAN) which keeps the power applied to all networking cards even when the power is allegedly turned off.

"Bob" hath wroth:

Note that I didn't say "turned off". I said "unplugged". The network and wireless PCI cards still have power applied when the machine is off thanks to the WOL feature. Try pulling the plug for about 5 minutes and see if that helps.

If not, my gut feel is that this is a hardware issue. The problem is that I can't tell if it's the wireless card or your unspecified "Athelon 64" motherboard. Check for a BIOS update for the motherboard. Check if you're using the latest driver from Dlink. If the BIOS allows configuring the IRQ lines for the various cards, try setting up the Dlink wireless card on its own IRQ line. If that's not possible, at least make sure it's not being shared with the video card.

If possible, try the Dlink card in a different machine. If it repeats the same problem, then there's definitely a hardware problem on the card.

Otherwise, I suggest you go shopping for a different PCI card. This problem is just too weird and unique to be easily solved.

I hate it when people don't come back and say how things went.... It's like reading a book, with some of the pages ripped out -