Computer Question--help please

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

Not sure this is the right spot for this post, but I'm hoping for help. My husband and I have nearly identical lap tops. When they are essentially side by side, I've had trouble with mine not finding a connection that his makes. This evening, I carried mine into the room with the desk top and it couldn't find the connection.

Sooooo, the question is: is there a part that can be replaced or is my lap top toast?

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Did you check to see if you hit the switch and turned off the wifi? Also if it is not the switch try rebooting.

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

I agree with what Frank suggested and if that fails right click on the wifi connection icon and try first to use "repair", then try to check for available networks and see if you see yours. Make sure yours is set as default.
If everything fails and you really think that you have a with wifi on your laptop, unfortunately on most laptops now wifi is on the mother board.
You can disable wifi on motherboard and add a wifi card if your laptop has a card slot.

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Ken on one of my old lap tops the Wifi used to cut out on me. It turned out to be the internal Wifi card. Might be a connection or internal antenna problem

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

It's had more trouble than my husband's for about a year. Now, when I ask it to find our in-house wifi, it finds it, says the signal is excellent; connects--but with limited availability, and I can't get on line.

The first time it happened, I carried it, while it was searching, closer to the signal, and it made the connection and was happy. Then, it worked for a few days, but slowly. Last night.....no possibility of getting on the internet, though it could see the system just fine.

It is a Toshiba Satelite--wifi on the motherboard? Internal card?

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

If you don't have a card that goes in an external slot then the wifi is on the mother board. There are no separate internal wifi boards on laptops that I am aware of. It sounds like it could be, as Frank said, a mother board wifi problem or possibly an antenna problem. Most likely the internal wifi.
If you know someone that has a wifi PCcard and your laptop has a slot for it you could try that and if it works then the problem is definately with your internal wifi.

It's had more trouble than my husband's for about a year. Now, when I ask it to find our in-house wifi, it finds it, says the signal is excellent; connects--but with limited availability, and I can't get on line.

The first time it happened, I carried it, while it was searching, closer to the signal, and it made the connection and was happy. Then, it worked for a few days, but slowly. Last night.....no possibility of getting on the internet, though it could see the system just fine.

It is a Toshiba Satelite--wifi on the motherboard? Internal card?

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Ken my old HP Laptop that gave me trouble had an internal Wifi card that was conected to the motherboard. In order to change the defective card all I had to do is unscrew 2 screws and pop out the board. It was like replacing RAM. Sometimes I would pop it out and put it back in to get it to work.

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

Oh, cool setup. I never came across one that was set up that way. I mostly wortked with Dell's and IBM's and the ones we had at work all had wifi as part of motherboard. The one's like yours sound like a better design for repairing!!! Frank, I just did some on line checking and I guess I just never ran in to one, but, quite a few have the kind of replaceable boards you discussed.
If OP's PC is like that, it would certaintly be a less expensive repair, if they can get a new board. Check your model laptop on line and see if the Wifi is a separate board on integrated on motherboard.

Ken my old HP Laptop that gave me trouble had an internal Wifi card that was conected to the motherboard. In order to change the defective card all I had to do is unscrew 2 screws and pop out the board. It was like replacing RAM. Sometimes I would pop it out and put it back in to get it to work.

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

Here is a link to instructions on removing the miniPCI wifi card on some Toshiba Satallite models, so I guess they have them as separate miniPCI cards. These instructions involve removing the keyboard and finding the miniPCI card on backside of it rather than the somewhat easier little door to unscrew on back of laptop. If you haven't done this sort of thing before I would be careful attempting it. It is not super hard but takes a bit of patience!!
Toshiba Satellite A215 laptop. Removing wireless card.