Fn F5 Wireless Applet Won't Controll my WiFi card

[jamone]

I just got a new X61 and it has the Intel 4965 AGN wireless card.
I just did a clean install of XP, and have gotten all the XP updates, and all of the drivers from Lenovo. However when I press Fn F5 to toggle power to the wireless it has never shown the WiFi, just Bluetooth and WWAN. It popped up a message upon pressing Fn F5 that said something to the effect "Not able to control the wireless card, update drives" But I'm running the latest drivers that Lenovo has, which is 11.5.0.36 which is higher then I am finding direct from Intel. Anyone know how to get this to work? I would prefer to use this then to have to open Network Connections every time and disable wifi.

[rek]

I've found that when installing the Intel wireless card drivers, you need to install the Intel PRO/Set utility as well -- even if you never intend to use it. For some reason, without that utility installed (even if you're using the Windows wireless network management), the Fn-F5 screen won't show the WLAN.

There are other, more complicated, ways in which the Fn-F5 can stop working: there have been a fair number of threads about this in the past. Look for posts regarding "Fn-F5" and "libeay32.dll".

[bri]

Since we have someone familiar with these issues here can I toss out my own issue? I'm pressed for time right now so can't research it and already called Lenovo. After rebooting one time that winXP crashed, the Fn-F5 app and Access Connections won't recognize that my 3945abg is 'powered on'. Clicking 'power on' and attempting to have AC power it up result in nothing. Everything outside of Thinkvantage apps indicate that it is enabled and Windows can configure a wireless connection.

[j-dawg]

Couldn't you just use the little switch on the chassis?

[jamone]

I couldn't use the HW switch cause I want to leave Bluetooth and WWAN on but kill WiFi when on the road.

[rek]

bri, the first thing to try is uninstalling all related drivers and applications (wifi drivers, Access Connections, Hotkey Manager), rebooting where prompted, then reinstall each with the latest versions from the Lenovo support site.

Part of the software may have been corrupted when the system crashed.

[ryengineer]

For Fn F5 problems please follow the solution in the below thread from antera309:

More Fn-F5 problems.

In general, for Fn combinations to work under Windows XP you would need the following drivers from lenovo:

-Hotkey drivers.
-ACPI Power Management drivers.
-Display drivers from lenovo.

[bri]

bri, the first thing to try is uninstalling all related drivers and applications (wifi drivers, Access Connections, Hotkey Manager), rebooting where prompted, then reinstall each with the latest versions from the Lenovo support site.

Part of the software may have been corrupted when the system crashed.

I uninstalled and reinstalled: wifi driver (deleted the 3 driver files from windows directories), access connections (various versions), Power Management Driver, and Hotkey Manager. I can't think if there is something I missed or some hidden file that isn't removed by the uninstall process. I'll check out the thread posted by ryengineer and whether the power driver I was looking at is the ACPI one... there are 3 diff. programs saying Power something...

[jamone]

I followed many different proposed ways but this was the only one that worked. It was also simpler then most. I found step 6, was unnecessary for me since it was already in my path.

Now it works without having to use Access connections or using Intel's Proset to manage wireless.

1. Uninstall the wireless driver using Add/Remove Programs
2. Uninstall the Hotkey utility using its Setup program (uninstall is an option in the Setup app; it doesn't appear in Add/Remove Programs control panel)
3. Restart
4. Delete the Hotkey folders from C:\Program Files\Lenovo\PkgMgr [key step!]
5. Reinstall the Hotkey Utility and the wireless driver (don't reboot if prompted)
6. Change the system Path to include C:\Program Files\Intel\Wireless\Bin (easy way to do this: go to command prompt and run the following: path = %PATH%;C:\Program Files\Intel\Wireless\Bin )
7. Restart

[bri]

HALLELUJAH! The antera309 method worked... was well worth the substantial amount of time involved. There must be a conflict of installing the 11.5.0.36 version ProSet driver over the previous one such that cleaning out the registry makes it worky like it's supposed to under Access Connections. Reason I say this is, I updated the wireless driver on my new X61 (same Intel Proset package for that 4965abn as the 3945abg on the T60) today and the same thing happened (all Thinkvantage apps alienated the wireless card). Luckily on that one I could just restore an R&R backup.

[semaj]

I followed many different proposed ways but this was the only one that worked. It was also simpler then most. I found step 6, was unnecessary for me since it was already in my path.

Now it works without having to use Access connections or using Intel's Proset to manage wireless.

1. Uninstall the wireless driver using Add/Remove Programs
2. Uninstall the Hotkey utility using its Setup program (uninstall is an option in the Setup app; it doesn't appear in Add/Remove Programs control panel)
3. Restart
4. Delete the Hotkey folders from C:\Program Files\Lenovo\PkgMgr [key step!]
5. Reinstall the Hotkey Utility and the wireless driver (don't reboot if prompted)
6. Change the system Path to include C:\Program Files\Intel\Wireless\Bin (easy way to do this: go to command prompt and run the following: path = %PATH%;C:\Program Files\Intel\Wireless\Bin )
7. Restart

it worked thank you
t60p
intel 3945 wireless