Thinkpads Forum

T510 can't turn Wifi on/ Fn + F5 not working
Windows 10

All of a sudden my wifi has stopped working, I have double checked the physical button at the front left is switched on and in device manager everything shows up fine but when I click on the wifi icon in the task bar (which has a red cross) it shows that wifi is turned off.

I also tried updating the driver and disabling/enabling in device manager.

Aslo at start up the wifi indicator doesn't light up at all.

Could be a dying wifi-card...

Thanks for the suggestion, I've just performed a clean install of windows 10 and it's still not working.

I have a wifi card from another junked laptop that I tried but it's not on the whitelist. Now I'm considering a modded BIOS over buying a new wifi card.

For Fn+F5 to work, you need Power Manager+Hotkeys+Access Connections installed in order for it to work...none of which is officially supported in any OS after W7.

Install these in the compatibility mode and report back...

Good luck.

Currently in the middle of moving house and the T510 is my backup so I may take a while to get back to you, but thanks!

Moving day got rained off!!

So I installed the three programs in order in windows 7 compatability mode. When I try Fn + F5 I get the appropriate window opening however it requests that "To use wireless radios: please turn on the hardware wireless switch as shown" It is of course switched on and I toggled it back and forth and tried it both on and off to the same result.

I got another message I think it was when I opened access connections directly which gave instructions to check BIOS as well as the hardware switch and I have double checked that too, wireless radio is enabled in BIOS.

I never use the wireless hardware switch and it shows no signs of being loose or any the worse for wear so should I go ahead and buy a new whitelisted wifi card?

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-lenovo-thin ... B009HOO2CW
This seems to be the best one to go for though I read somewhere the driver hadn't been updated yet for windows 10.

Just to clarify I had been using the laptop regularly (despite being a backup) with Windows 10 for the last 4 months or so with WiFi working perfectly, all of a sudden from one day to the next it stopped working. Hopefully it wasn't an automatic update from Windows 10. I suppose I could install windows 7 but I'll wait for sugestions.

Hopefully you've used imaging software to make a W7 image before your foray into W10?

emeraldgirl08 wrote:Hopefully you've used imaging software to make a W7 image before your foray into W10?

Nope, I was hoping that trying windows 7 wasnt going to be the next suggestion. Actuallly I put an SSD in so i think I have the original HDD lying around somewhere with windows 7, you helped remind me of that fact!

Well that got my hopes up for a moment but no change using my old HDD with windows 7 premium. It's still asking me to turn on the hardware switch and check the radio is switched on in BIOS, they both are on.

Boot a "live" Linux CD/DVD/USB and verify how the system behaves in that environment, then report back.

Good luck.

I haven't got around to trying a Linux boot USB yet but I thought I'd had a brainwave and would swap the wifi card from my T530 with the T510, but no that would be far too easy, not compatible either way.

You should be able to install a modded bios to the T510, so that you can test any wireless card on it.

hhhd1 wrote:You should be able to install a modded bios to the T510, so that you can test any wireless card on it.

Quite, though I've never flashed a modded bios before and so I'm pretty reluctant to try that. I haven't found any clear step by step instructions so I'd rather not muddle my way through it for the time being.

My weapon of choice any time I'm in doubt about Windows drivers and asking myself whether it's hardware or software is Knoppix. If you haven't come across it before, it's a complete Linux system you can burn to a DVD and boot from -- it's actually designed to run from DVD -- and won't harm your Windows installation in any way. It has a plethora of tools for testing and investigating all sorts of hardware issues and the best part of it is, you can't harm your computer. It may seem daunting at first but give it a shot .... you'll soon find you like it!

Thanks Thinkpat, I'm going to give it a try!

I'm currently creating a Knoppix USB, any tips on what I'm supposed to do once I boot it up on my T510 as far as troubleshooting the wireless?

EDIT: So yeah, seem to have Knoppix 7.6 up and running, daunting was a fair prediction. Reading up on trying to get the wifi connected or even to simply tell if the wifi card is detected.

On the Knoppix taskbar I click on connections and under wifi it reads "wifi is disabled by hardware switch"

Apparently you can stick some tape over pin 20 on the wifi card to disable the hardware switch...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2150597

Trying to find my electrical tape.

EDIT: Bloody hell, it only worked! I was having a mare trying to stick a sliver of tape over pin 20 so decided to risk dabbing some superglue with a toothpick and scraping off any excess.

Now I have an interesting conflict where wifi is connected and working in windows 10 but access connections continues to show a red blocked sign and the same "turn on hardware switch" message.

To check under Linux whether the card is being seen or not, open a shell (terminal, "command prompt") and type "lspci", which will list everything on the PCI bus. Look for a line like this:I'm writing this from mt T510 running Debian. You should see that regardless of whether the wireless switch is on or off. If you don't have WiFi after that, it could be the switch but it could also be Windows drivers.

Much appreciated ThinkPat but the problem seems to be with the hardware switch rather than the card.

Strange as I never used the switch, I'm in hot and humid Brazil so maybe that has something to do with it.

Push that switch fully On/Off a number of times, see if that helps.
If not, remove keyboard and palmrest to access the wifi-switch.
Use a multimeter to test its functionality.
If it doesn't work, solder a wire across the middle (Mid) and left (On) contacts to make it permanently ON.

Switch seen from above:

=========
.!.....!.....!'
On..Mid..Off

Thanks RBS, nice diagram! I whipped off the keyboard and palmrest but the switch is still well tucked away under the roll cage. Are you thinking of the T410? As long as it's working I'm happy to leave it alone for the time being, I think.

You might be able to get a spray of Servisol or other switch cleaner in there.

Recife wrote:Thanks RBS, nice diagram! I whipped off the keyboard and palmrest but the switch is still well tucked away under the roll cage.

This reminds me how I once damaged a W510 motherboard.

I was swapping a defective one and I wasn't careful enough when installing the roll cage + motherboard on the base cover. I ended crushing the small wifi switch on the motherboard between the cage and the base

The black+green switch on the basecover was working, but the small switch on the motherboard was dead. So I ended up with the very same error you have now.

Since the T510 layout is very similar to the W510 (apart from less RAM slots on yours) you could have a similar problem as me (although I think that's less likely)

Oh dear Tasurinchi, that is annoying. As regards to the T510 I have never removed the roll cage but if I ever get around to it I shall try and remember your advice.

Now I have a windows 10 activation issue, I upgraded from windows 7 no problem but as I performed a clean install to trouble shoot the wifi issues it no longer accepts the current key nor the original windows 7 key. I actually phoned Microsoft activation Brazil and their advice was to put my original mechanical hard drive in as it's clearly a hardware conflict as I have fitted a new SSD, what a bunch of bankers!

So...

Reinstalled windows 7 and I had to phone the automatic activation number to get the original OEM Win 7 key to work, then upgrade again to windows 10.

So as things stand pin 20 has been made obsolete and so far so good!