This morning when I woke up, I logged onto the internet.
This evening when I returned to boot up again and log on, no dice. My wireless indicator light was off, so I figured I must have bumped the switch. I turned it to on. The orange light of doom was still glowing. Orange means the wireless is off. Blue means the wireless is on.
The orange light was mocking me.
So I fiddled with it some more. I used my Blackberry to Google why the wireless wasn’t turning on, and the orange light remained. Ironically, I came upon a forum where a member referenced my exact model of HP laptop and said they had experienced the same problem and that their calls to HP Customer Service were futile. (I’ve heard that about them.) They also said they’d taken the laptop into a repair store and decided the $150 diagnostic fee was not even worth it.
I glanced over a few more articles on the Crackberry and decided my best bet was the cheapest route (thank goodness for that)… I headed out to purchase a wireless adapter. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be to get installed and working, but after an hour of frustration, I got it. So, that’s that. I no longer have the ease of built-in wireless, but at least my computer is still working and able to function online with the adapter. (And I had a $20 reward certificate from Best Buy to use up, so it cost me half the price)
Technology. I love it. And I hate it.
Erin said,
November 22, 2009 @ 9:15 pm
Ugh, we’ve been fighting with our wireless router (and internet in general) so much lately. It’s such a PITA. I feel your pain
Glad to hear things are working again!
28 said,
November 22, 2009 @ 10:26 pm
Oooh, we need to talk about this – we have the same/similar laptop and our wireless card fried about 8 months ago. First two adapters didn’t even fit; now the one we have needs a password we don’t know so … yeah … our laptop acts like a desktop. Grrrr.