Dell Inspiron 6400 Wireless Adapter gone

Have one of these Laptops that I am giving to parents. Was installed with XP but did a clean install to clear all the crap. However when I reinstalled it the wireless adapter was not working? Went into network connections and there was no option? Had a old wireless adapter key and working from that.

When I bought the PC windows was installed and dont think I had any issue with this? Is there a driver I need to install or how can I check that there is a wireless adapter?

The details on the laptop are Here

Below is picture of device manager. Dont know what drivers etc to download to try to get the wireless network card installed in PC working

[broken link removed]

If you can download a program called SIV (System Information Viewer) and see what class of Wireless Adapter came with the laptop.
Or else just download all 3 types of driver which came with that model (as listed in the full list - networks tab of that page you linked) and try installing each of them, most likely if they don't find the adapter they won't install.
PS. You should probably do the same for the gfx driver too.

Be careful of the soft key for turning off wireless.

Normally the Fn key and one of the function keys with a little antenna on it.

I have seen this catch out a few people.

Also I had a dell that had the wireless turned off in the BIOS.
really annoying, until you find it.

Saw another one with a switch on the side to switch on and off the wireless.

Downloaded the SIV but not sure what I am looking for. Tried downloading drivers but no joy. Have the F2 key with the wireless but not sure if I have turned it off

How can you turn the wireless on in BIOS or check to see if its on?

Is the green "WifFi" light on the little display above the keyboard ?

jhegarty said:

Is the green "WifFi" light on the little display above the keyboard ?

Click to expand...

No thats the problem before I did the format was working sound but no now and wifi light is not on?

Check it's enabled from the bios.

Press F12 after turning on the laptop.

If it is you will need to download the drivers from the dell website

I would think that it must be enabled in the bios as the wireless network device is detected in windows as "Other devices-Network Controller".

Only a test - but on 'SIV' if you look at the "PCI Bus" list then "Devices" button (bottom right) see if you can see an indication of the wireless device version.

Did none of the 3 wireless driver types install - what errors did they give you ?

Result from Siv downloading all the drivers under the network option and will try all of them

[PCI Devices] <- SIV - System Information Viewer V4.08

Location Vendor-Dev-Sub_OEM-Rev Class Windows Description (PCI Description) - Showing 22 of 22 from \\\HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum

|0 - 00 - 0| 8086-27A0-00000000-03 System Mobile Intel® 955XM/945GM/PM/GMS/940GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller – 27A0 (*)
|0 - 01 - 0| 8086-27A1-00000000-03 System Mobile Intel® 955XM/945GM/PM/GMS/940GML Express PCI Express Root Port - 27A1 (*)
|0 - 27 - 0| 8086-27D8-01BD1028-01 System Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio (*)
|0 - 28 - 0| 8086-27D0-00000000-01 System Intel® 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Root Port - 27D0 (*)
|0 - 28 - 3| 8086-27D6-00000000-01 System Intel® 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Root Port - 27D6 (*)
|0 - 29 - 0| 8086-27C8-01BD1028-01 USB Intel® 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Host Controller - 27C8 (*)
|0 - 29 - 1| 8086-27C9-01BD1028-01 USB Intel® 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Host Controller - 27C9 (*)
|0 - 29 - 2| 8086-27CA-01BD1028-01 USB Intel® 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Host Controller - 27CA (*)
|0 - 29 - 3| 8086-27CB-01BD1028-01 USB Intel® 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Host Controller - 27CB (*)
|0 - 29 - 7| 8086-27CC-01BD1028-01 USB Intel® 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB EHCI Host Controller - 27CC (*)
|0 - 30 - 0| 8086-2448-00000000-E1 System Intel® 82801 PCI Bridge - 2448 (*)
|0 - 31 - 0| 8086-27B9-00000000-01 System Intel® 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Controller - 27B9 (*)
|0 - 31 - 2| 8086-27C4-01BD1028-01 hdc Intel® 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Storage Controller - 27C4 (*)
|0 - 31 - 3| 8086-27DA-01BD1028-01 System Intel® 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller - 27DA (*)
|1 - 00 - 0| 1002-7149-20031028-00 Display ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 (*)
|3 - 00 - 0| 14E4-170C-01AF1028-02 Net Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller (*)
|3 - 01 - 0| 1180-0832-01BD1028-00 1394 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller (*)
|3 - 01 - 1| 1180-0822-01BD1028-19 SDHost SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller (*)
|3 - 01 - 2| 1180-0843-01BD1028-01 hdc Ricoh MMC Host Controller (*)
|3 - 01 - 3| 1180-0592-01BD1028-0A hdc Ricoh Memory Stick Controller (*)
|3 - 01 - 4| 1180-0852-01BD1028-05 hdc Ricoh xD-Picture Card Controller (*)
|11 - 00 - 0| 8086-4222-10218086-02 Unknown Network Controller (*)

[ OK ] [ Copy] [Windows][Machine] [UAA Dev][USB Bus][Network][Partitions][PNP Dev][Volumes][Drives][ SCSI] [PCI Bus][PCI Dev][Devices]

Whoop De Doo got the wireless driver and now another problem

Can view wireless and go to connect and getting 'acquiring network address' and it wont connect

Any idea as to what step to take next ?

Try right click on the wireless icon in the notification area and click on repair. Try turning on and off the router before doing the repair.

Ok Blonde moment over and it was the wrong key

Thanks for everyone with the help much appreciated now to try to teach parents the basic of computing on a laptop