How To Turn On ThinkPad R51 Radio

[Tom9489]

I was given a ThinkPad R51 recently. It looks to be in very good shape. I can access the Internet via ethernet connection with no problem. However, I can't access the Internet wirelessly. All of the other computers in the household have no problems operating wirelessly. It looks like the radio in the computer is not turned on. I can't get the radio icon to light up. I have tried both the IBM software and the Windows software to get on line wirelessly. The Windows software simply reports that another software program (IBM) is handling the wireless operation.

How do I go about getting the radio turned on and this computer operating on the Internet wirelessly?

Many thanks.

[Tõnis]

I'm not sure about the R51, but my R61 has a hardware switch for the wireless card on the front of the case. Are you sure yours doesn't have one on the unit somewhere?

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

Unlike R61, there's no physical switch on R5x series.

Could you please provide the 7-character model number from the bottom of the laptop, should be something like 28xx-xxx or 183x-xxx...

[RealBlackStuff]

And then there is the key-combination Fn/F5 to switch On/Off the radio...

[Tom9489]

The 7 character model number is 1830-DD3. You are right - the R51 doesn't have a physical on/off switch for the radio.

[ajkula66]

Check whether the wireless card is enabled in BIOS.

You may also want to uninstall Access Connections and allow Windows to manage the wireless.

Good luck and keep us posted.