Computer wont detect wireless adapter

[Ryoki]

Hies,

So i went and moved house, now i have a shiny wifi connection instead of cable. So i got myself a Wifi card for in my PC. Installed drivers from CD, plugged it in one of my three remaining open slots, and booted up to finish the install process. It then gave me a message that a problem has been detected with the card, would I like to retry plugging it in? Yes, i thought, and tried the other two slots as well. Same result. I concluded that either all three slots i tried were broken or the card was and seeing as it was late and i had spent too much time on messing about i decided to return it and just get one of those nifty USB wifi adapters. Seemed easier.

Alas, no joy. After installing the drivers from CD as specified by the manual i plug in the little bugger. My computer is supposed to then detect it i guess, but instead it goes 'detecting USB adapter' forever. So, either this one is broken as well or it's some arcane setting in windows somewhere which is somehow preventing my machine from detecting new adapters. Or something.

Anyone got any ideas? I'm at a loss here

[SoM]

first i'd suggest you download the latest drivers and try again, drivers from a CD aren't always new.

[Ryoki]

Will try that, shall report back

[obsidian]

Brand/model of the wireless card?

Also check device manager to make sure your USB controllers and other system devices are working okay.

[GONNAFISTYA]

One thing I noticed is that there are way too many "new" wireless cards that don't work properly with a 64bit OS.

[Ryoki]

Well, installing the latest drivers did not do much. Actually that's not true, it did cause my device to be installed properly now, sort of. Still doesn't actually work, but i succesfully completed the install now.

I checked device manager as well to see if something was amiss, nothing weird turns up. The device shows as working there, but when i try to connect it gives the message there are no available networks. Whats weird is that when i run the auto windows problem solver thingie that then pops up it claims that the driver is not correctly installed.

It's a Netgear N600 wireless dual band WNDA3100.

[SoM]

have a read through here

[Ryoki]

Nice one, nearly had a eureka moment there as this guy seems to have the exact same problem. I removed AVG entirely and tried again, no sigar though

Wtf eh?

[SoM]

what driver version did you D/L btw ?

what OS are you using ?

[Ryoki]

I snatched this one from their site: http://support.netgear.com/product/WNDA3100v2 Turns out it's the same one as on the install cd.

Extra confusion in the form of a v1 and a v2, nowhere on the box or in the manual does it say what version i have. But the driver on the cd was v2, so i went with that. Tried v1 as well just to make sure when that failed, with the same non-result. My OS is Windows 7.

Kinda gave up on fixing it during the weekend, hopefully i'll be able to give their helpdesk dudes a call when i get home from work (the useless gits were closed during the weekend). Oh and i did manage to test the adapter on a lappy and found that it works fine. Just not on my comp

[SoM]

try this driver

[Ryoki]

Cheers, will do!

[Ryoki]

Nope, same result still.

Called their helpdesk, was put on hold for thirty mins then got disconnected. Ffffuuuu

[SoM]

you did try all the USB ports amirite ?

[Ryoki]

Yup... it's not that either. I'm writing an angreh email to netgear today seeing as they're apparently impossible to reach by telephone, see what they have to say for themselves.

I'm also heavily leaning towards just saying fuckit to the whole wireless idea and getting some sort of wired setup, i can't be arsed with this bullshit for much longer.

[GONNAFISTYA]

Truth be told wired is better anyway as some wireless systems, while advertising otherwise, are limited to 10 mbit speeds.

[SoM]

here's some more info

READ ME have a read through that

[SoM]

so what's going on Ryoki ?

[Ryoki]

Kind of gave up on it man, couldn't get it to work for the life of me.

I contacted netgear and exchanged a series of highly useless emails that led nowhere. I then had an IT savvy friend look at it; she spent an entire morning messing around before sending me texts about how she was ready to smash some shit out of frustration because the problem just doesn’t make sense.

At one point i seriously considered a full format, but in the end i thought it was probably better to just arrange a different kind of connection. For the moment i ended up McGuyvering some meagre form of internet with aid of a handy little app called PDAnet and my phone, but it's not something that i can consider a solution.

The internet arrangement now is that the neighbour has a really powerful wifi hookup and that our appartments share the bill, but that arrangement will be stopped soon because i’m entirely unpleased by it. Aside from the fact that i can’t get it to work on my machine it has other issues; the signal is too weak and i'm highly suspecting his internets gets priority, because i’ve found things crawl to a halt whenever he’s behind his computer. The signal is also wobbly as shit in the first place, it drops way too often. This is something to do with the connection itself according to my neighbour, who is also plagued by this. He's otherwise very pleased with his connection, raving about how incredibly fast it is. He won't be pleased to hear that i won't be continuing the deal that was in place, he'll probably have to get a lower speed connection now, suspect he can't afford this connection if he has to pay for the entire package. Ah well, his problem eh.

Long story short, I shall acquire my own internets and it shall not be wifi based.

[Eraser]

Have you tried fixing the problem?

[MKJ]

swearing off wifi cos of one faulty dongle is a bit drastic tho.
I just plugged in one of those li'l usb sticks and it worked instantly, no drivers required.

not that I ever use my desktop anymore but shush

[Tormentius]

swearing off wifi cos of one faulty dongle is a bit drastic tho.

This

Try a different brand of wifi card or at least a different model of Netgear's line.

[GONNAFISTYA]

One thing I noticed is that there are way too many "new" wireless cards that don't work properly with a 64bit OS.

Do you have a 64 bit OS and have you looked into whether or not the card you bought works with a 64 bit OS??

[Ryoki]

swearing off wifi cos of one faulty dongle is a bit drastic tho.
I just plugged in one of those li'l usb sticks and it worked instantly, no drivers required.

not that I ever use my desktop anymore but shush

Oh but the dongle is not faulty, it works like a charm on other machines. It's my pc that's somehow not accepting it.

swearing off wifi cos of one faulty dongle is a bit drastic tho.

This

Try a different brand of wifi card or at least a different model of Netgear's line.

See the first post, i tried a PCI wifi card from another brand, it also went unrecognized by my machine. At the time i figured it was simply broken so i returned it and got the USB device.

One thing I noticed is that there are way too many "new" wireless cards that don't work properly with a 64bit OS.

Do you have a 64 bit OS and have you looked into whether or not the card you bought works with a 64 bit OS??

Yes i do and both devices i tried are compatible with 64 bit OS... shit is mysterious yo.

In any case, i'm swearing off wifi only partly because of this issue, if the connection itself was working properly i'd be tempted to keep trying out of sheer bloody mindedness. I suppose i could get a signal amplifier and hook it up with a cable, have been considering trying that... but the that won’t solve the issue that the connection gives priority to my neighbour. Is that even possible? I really think it’s the case, when he hits download the connection just goes to early 90’s era modem speeds for me. Only noticed it recently, he apparently works a late shift so we aren’t online at the same time usually.

[MKJ]

throttling is very possible, wired or wifi.
but you speak of getting your own connection so that point is moot.

unfuck your pc.