Dead Wi-Fi after ThinkVantage Updates with X41 Tablet

[X41Tableter]

Problem: Cannot Power On Wireless Radio

History: I bought an X41 Tablet (system model 18663GU, BIOS version 2.06) a week ago from a family friend to use for school.

It has the Intel 2915ABG mini-PCI card in it and is running XP Tablet Edition (w/ Service Pack 2). It has a bunch of "ThinkVantage" stuff on it and after running an update with the ThinkVantage "System Update" utility, and installing those updates (a total of 16), the wi-fi card promptly went dead. (Note: I was using the wi-fi card at the time to download those very updates!).

I have tried to download all of the latest drivers (V11.1.1.0, etc. from Lenovo website), rollback the current driver, but nothing has worked.

Here are some random facts: The "Wireless Connection Status" shows the following:

Operating state: Association status unknown
Signal strength: 0%
Signal quality: Poor
Transmit rate: 0.0Kbps
Associated MAC: 00:00:00:00:00:00:00
Current Channel: 0

The option to Power On the wireless radio results in nothing, I can depress the on-screen button, but it does nothing. It's almost as if there is no card in there anymore.

My adapter shows a MAC address.

The ThinkVantage Access Connections utility gives a similar result, and the "Diagnostic Tools" window that pops up after a failed connection shows that the cause of the failure was "Association failed - wireless radio not powered on." Error code 014. The recommended solution is to power it on by clicking "Repair" but that results in nothing.

There are some other menus in this window, but I am unsure how to use the diagnostic tools (i.e. Ping, Trace Route, IP Config., etc.).

In five-second intervals, the green-lighted wireless icon (with the tower) on the lower lefthand side of the screen remains lit and then blinks off for a split second.

Not sure is this is of any help, but the wi-fi was working perfectly on my school network prior to all of this. Interestingly, it did have this quirk in which it would only connect to my home WEP-enabled Wi-Fi network if I entered the WEP key (i.e passphrase) in a hexadecimal form.

I hope that wasn't too much info. I figured the more pertinent stuff I could put up there, the better.

[The Spirit of X21]

Have you checked to see if Windows Zero Configuration was on?

1. Go to the Start menu and click run
2. Type services.msc
3. Scroll down to "Wireless Zero Configuration"
4. Double click on the service
5. Check that the service is started and set to startup automatically

[GomJabbar]

Sounds familiar...

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=49474

[X41Tableter]

Have you checked to see if Windows Zero Configuration was on?

1. Go to the Start menu and click run
2. Type services.msc
3. Scroll down to "Wireless Zero Configuration"
4. Double click on the service
5. Check that the service is started and set to startup automatically

I did and it was started.

Sounds familiar...

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=49474

That was the solution! I downloaded the latest version of Access Connections, made sure I had the latest of both the Hotkey and Tablet Shortcut drivers installed, uninstalled the Access Connections (AC), uninstalled the latest Intel 2915ABG driver, rebooted, then installed the Intel driver, then AC and abracadabra!

Thank you!