Thinkpads Forum

I can't get Fn-F5 to work properly (it only shows bluetooth radio but not wifi) and also the thinkpad wireless manager and "signal strenght" icon don't work.
Here is some background.
Everything was working fine about 1 month ago. Fn-F5 showed both wifi and bt radio. Access Connection worked and had all the options (e.g. Tools->find wireless network) enabled and working. I also had an icon in the taskbar showing signal strength.
Then I uninstalled access connection because I didn't use it nor liked it much (for example If I go to office, hibernate, remove net calbe, go home, connect net cable, resume...it didn't work properly with accessconnection installed and I had to remove cable and reinsert it to make accessconnection realize the network has changed; while, without access connection, windows could get a new IP correctly and automatically).
Even after uninstalling access connection and switching to the standard winxp sp2 wireless manager, everything worked fine (inlcuding fn-f5 showing both bt and wifi radio).
Then some new updates have been released by IBM and I (stupidly?) installed them (with Software Installer).
This broke Fn-F5 that started to say that it cannot handle the Wifi radio and that I should updated my wifi driver (which was already the latest release).
Trying to get it back working I installed access connection back, but FnF5 still doesn't work (it doesn't complain anymore but just shows BT radio), and also accessconnection seems to be unable to handle the wifi radio (all wifi related options are greyed out, and I cannot get the signal strength icon to show up).

Do you have ANY IDEA of what I can do to get it to work properly?
Note that I've tried disabling the option "use windows to configure my wireless network settings" (from the wireless network properties) and removing the hotkey driver, accessconnection, and wifi driver and reinstalling them with Software Installer but didn''t solve.

It seems that access connection, when you install it, doesn't properly register itself as the wireless manager. Can you do it manually? how?

First, make sure this isn't the problem: Intel wireless adapters have limited connection methods and cannot be controlled via Fn + F5 - ThinkPad. If that doesn't fix it, then see below.

Try unistalling Access Connections and your wireless driver and software. Reboot and if the Found Hardware Wizard pops-up, choose cancel. Now reinstall your wireless driver and software, reboot, then reinstall Access Connections. Hopefully this will work for you. Sometimes the registry gets messed up to the point that you have to use a registry cleaner after uninstalling the software to clear the old stuff out.

I have this probem each time i install ThinkVantage System Update

And it won't go untill you format!!!

Do you have ANY IDEA of what I can do to get it to work properly?
?

Hmmm, I was replying your post here and somehow a new topic was created....here is THE solution

Thank you very much. Problem solved. This is what I did to solve the problem (which is squite different from the solution posted, so I'm reporting it)
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- Renamed libeay32.dll in C:\Windows\System32 to libeay32.dll.bak
No other libeay32.dll are present on my hard-disk (not even in the C:\program files\intel\wireless subtree, since recent intel releases don't have a "bin" subdir)
- Removed TVAC e intel pro/wireless driver (from control-panel->add/remove programs)
- Rebooted
- Cancelled windows automatic installation of wireless drivers
- Installed old version of intel pro/wireless (v. 10.1.0.11)
This old version of intel pro\wireless places a libeay32.dll in C:\program files\intel\wireless\bin
- Rebooted
- Fn-F5 works OK. The WiFi manager is the standard Windows one and works OK
- Run ThinkVantage Software Installer
TVSI downloaded TVAC 4.21
TVSI is confused about the Pro\wireless version. It says that 10.5.0.0 is installed and 10.1.0.11 available. Actually 10.1.0.11 is the one installed (confirmed from the Device Manager) and I doubt that 10.5.0.0 is actually available on my hard-disk since I removed it before running Software Installer.
TVSI proposes to install only TVAC4.21. I let it install TVAC4.21.
- Rebooted
C:\program files\intel\wireless\bin\libeay32.dll is still there (from intel drivers v10.1.0.11). No other libeay32.dll in the system. Note that this path is in the PATH variable
TVAC works all right. Wifi Works all right. Fn-F5 works all-right. The wifi manager is now TVAC.
- Run ThinkVantage System Update (because I still need to update the Wifi driver)
TVSU correctly detects that I need to update the WiFi Driver to v. 10.5.0.0
I let TVSU download (53.91MB) and install it
- Rebooted
TVAC works all right. Wifi Works all right. Fn-F5 works all-right. The wifi manager is still TVAC.
C:\program files\intel\wireless\bin\libeay32.dll is still there
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So the thing that this time I did different with respect to my previous experiments is that I installed PRO\wireless drivers 10.1 before 10.5. It seems that 10.1 install the "program files\intel\wireless\bin" subdir with the libeay32.dll and adds this path to the PATH variable.
When you then update to 10.5, this dir is left over from the previous version and also the PATH variable is not altered.
I'm not totally sure (and I don't want to mess further on to confirm it) but I believe that drivers v.10.5 don't install the bin directory nor the libeay32.dll, so if you completely remove you wireless driver and also make sure that the whoel C:\program files\intel\wireless directory is deleted (which is what I did before having problems) and then install drivers 10.5.0.0, then you are into troubles since you are missing the libeay32.dll

Thank you for the explanation. Really apprechiated. I was having the exact same problem but have been too lazy to fix it and mess up my system again.