Showing posts with label wireless switch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wireless switch. Show all posts

Friday, May 4, 2012

Hardware switch for Lenovo wireless radio truly exists

Today I spent some hours trying to figure out why I was not able use the wireless radio (WLAN) on an old Lenovo SL400 laptop.

When I tried to search for wireless networks, the machine told me to "Turn the wireless radio on". I tried to do that by disabling and enabling the wireless device, but the led for wireless connection just blinked for some seconds. Also nothing happened when I pressed Fn+F5.

I updated everything possible with Lenovo's own updater software and tried to enable and disable the wireless network card from BIOS. But still nothing, I was not able to use wlan.

While clicking around the settings, I suddenly got a popup window with the notification "The internal wireless device is set to 'radio off' in BIOS setup or hardware switch".

Because I certainly had checked from BIOS that the wireless was in use, I made the conclusion that there really HAS to be an actual physical switch for the wireless radio usage.

Really, I had to google the "lenovo wireless switch" and with a help of some forum post, I was able to locate the switch, from bottom of the front panel, out of sight. Definitely not an easy place to spot a small black switch!

Oh boy, how I felt shamed! My colleagues told me that every Lenovo has always had a hardware wireless switch. But every model may have it in slightly different place.

Well, this was my first Lenovo, so how could I knew that?!