wireless is ON? OFF? I don't know

[g48dd]

I don't know much about wireless. I am trying to help a guy here in Iraq get his wireless working. There is a new company on my base providing wireless internet, I know that this company is broadcasting in 802.11g because when I use my laptop I can see the " g " by the network Icon. My friend’s laptop is pretty old. It is a Compaq Presario 1500. I had a hard time just trying to figure out how to turn it on, there is no button. If you look at the keys I can see that the function button appears to be the way it is turned on so I tried that key combo but nothing happens. However when I slide a Buffalo Wireless PCI card in it will bring up the wireless searching window. But still that does not mean that the wireless is on. He does not have his manual and he has never used the wireless so he is not much help. When I put the Wireless card in I also get a wireless connection Icon in the Network Connections window so that is good but still I cannot find anything that tells me the wireless is on. I have another laptop right next to his that has 802.11g wireless and when I turn it on I can get the network we are looking for with 4 bars so I know it is possible to receive the signal even inside my metal box living space. His computer searches but finds nothing. I am thinking two things 1) I do not have his wireless on 2) That his laptop is so old it is probably 802.11b or something like that and it cannot find an 802.11 g network? Is that possible? If so how do we fix that? Can I download new drivers to fix it, or will the fact that the Buffalo Wireless card I put in his laptop which is 802.11g card will that fix the problem? If that is true then I am back to the wireless is not turned on.

[glc]

All your questions are pretty much barking up the wrong tree, they only pertain to machines with builtin wireless which that one does not have. If you put a PCMCIA wireless card in and install the drivers, it's on and it should work. You have to use the Buffalo utility to connect to the network, or if it has XP, the builtin Windows wireless utility.

I'm typing this from a 8 year old IBM Thinkpad with Windows 2000 and a Linksys wireless PCMCIA card connected to my sister's Netgear "G" router.

If the Buffalo can't find a network, either the drivers are bad or the card is bad.

[g48dd]

OK that helps a lot, I put the card in but had not used the disk which means I have not installed the drivers.

Thanks Ken

[glc]

Read the installation instructions - quite often you are supposed to install the software BEFORE inserting the card.

Old military saying - RTFM - definitely applies here.