I have now received my third Thinkpad T43...first one fingerprint reader did not work, second would not allow wireless card to be turned on/off via Fn/F5 keys, only by going into device manager. Third unit worked day I received unit, but three weeks later I find it will not work again except via device manager. I have no particularly strange apps on my unit, Office, firewall and anti-virus (both of which I disabled to try again). Have latest drivers, this is making me nuts. Anyone run into this?

Hi,

It does not sound like a hardware problem, but more like some kind of software conflict. What does Fn-F5 do in your case ? does the witdow appear ? does it present you with the 'Turn off' button ? What happens when you press it ? What card are you using ? Do you have correctly installed the sebring API (does it appear under 'add or remove programs' list in control panel?) ? Are you using Access connections ? do you have latest level drivers ? ... can you go back to factory state and work from there on what breaks it ?

Those are just a few points to verify...

Fn/F5 opens and indicates that the wireless card is on regardless of it's true state. If the card is off, the panel indicates on and the button does nothing. If I turn the card on in device manager, it cannot be toggled on/off via the panel. Card is the Intel a/b/g, has latest driver. Will not go back to factory state, that would be resetting up computer for third time, I'll throw it out the window first. Access connections works fine, I can get on net via wireless, simply cannot turn it on and off as designed.

tried rolling back the driver for wifi card? has the "latest" driver been installed thru Windows Update or from the IBM?

Stangri; I am so far past level one tech support suggestions, please, I have been through bios updates, removed and added drivers, and worked on preventing certain programs from opening via msconfig. If you have a hands on suggestion because you have encountered the problem, great, all of the obvious items have been tried, many with high level IBM tech people.

My suggestion, which is rather extreme, is to do a reinstall of the factory image and see if that fixes things. I wasn't sure if your reference to starting for the third time meant you already tried that or are just on your third machine.

My T43 was buggy (crashes, BSODs, shutdown errors etc.) out of the box and eventually I sent for an EZServ box to send the *****Expletives removed by Moderator***** thing back but decided to try the reinstall, just in case. I was also careful to install apps and hardware piece by piece, restarting each time to check everything still worked. I had no problems at all after that.

I still have the EZServ box too. Not sure what to do with it

Rfalter, if you wish to be arrogant to the people who are trying to help you it's your call.
I've had that problem and resolved that, there's no hope for you tho if you cannot even answer a simple question where from did you install the driver for your wifi card.

Hi rfalter. I have a similar problem with my T41p except the wireless no longer works at all. When i press the fn/f5 combination only the BT radio option appears. IBM couldn't help me over the phone either. It has the sebring API and also the latest drivers. My a/b/g card is acutually an upgrade to the standard 2373 GGG model i have and it came with an installation CD which also never worked. I tried reinstalling the wireless card that came with the machine but that no longer works either.

I will eventually send it to IBM to se if they can do anything with it but don't really have high hopes, especially after hearing about your experience. I've been without wireless for about 8 months now - I simply have not had enough time off work to get it repaired at IBM, I use this laptop every day. One of the reasons I bought an expensive IBM laptop was to avoid problems like this!

Sorry i can't help. I just wanted someone to share my whinge with.

SUERTE!!