Cannot turn on Laptop's Wi-Fi

[Hawkster16]

     After I did some funky business with the power button and battery on my Lenovo Z585 laptop to get it to fully charge, my wifi "switch" turned off and I cannot switch it on.
 

 
     I did some research and tried several things to get it to work again (such as installing a different version of Lenovo Power Management, updating my drivers, and inspecting my wireless LAN card). I tried using borrowed Belkin Wireless USB Adapter to connect to the Wi-Fi and it worked. This is what the "switch" area looks like now:
 

 
     Could it be that my wireless LAN card is on the fritz since this wireless adapter bypassed the problem? How could I tell if it is? Also here are my specs:
 

 
     I you haven't been able to tell yet, I am not an expert around computers (Linus's videos got me very interested in them though, so I figured I would ask this here) Thank you in advance.   

[Vacsol]

-snip-

i'm dumb

[Benjio]

Personally, I would try uninstalling Lenovo Power Management and re-installing your wifi driver.

[Hawkster16]

it likely has to do with Lenovo Power management

try disabling any energy saving features

 

 

according to http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-U-V-Z-and-P-series/z585-Wi-Fi-not-working/td-p/925837 this might work

1. Install the Windows 7 Lenovo Power management 

2. Adjust Power Setting to highe performance

3. Set Battery Setting to protection mode

4. Set Smart  Power Saving HDD off

5. Save Settings and finish the program

6. Fn + F5

I tried installing the Windows 7 version, but i had some trouble installing it, and after I was fairly certain it was installed correctly I didn't have any luck with the wifi "switch."

[Hawkster16]

Personally, I would try uninstalling Lenovo Power Management and re-installing your wifi driver.

I will try that.

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

Have you tried seeing if the adapter is disabled?

1. Network and Sharing Center
2. Left side, click on "Change adapter settings"
3. See if WiFi 1 is set as disabled, if it is, right click it, and select "Enable"

[Hawkster16]

-snip-

i'm dumb

 

Personally, I would try uninstalling Lenovo Power Management and re-installing your wifi driver.

I am uninstalling my regular lenovo power management I realized that I probably didn't have the windows 7 version installed correctly when I tried that.

[Hawkster16]

 

Have you tried seeing if the adapter is disabled?

1. Network and Sharing Center
2. Left side, click on "Change adapter settings"
3. See if WiFi 1 is set as disabled, if it is, right click it, and select "Enable"

 

Nope. Thanks though. 

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

Nope. Thanks though. 

wifi 1 right click.JPG

Disable and re-enable it. Win 8 likes to sometimes say your adapter is enabled, when it's not, hence the greyed out. Loves doing it to mine when I don't shut it down for over a week (typically use hibernate instead)

[Benjio]

I am uninstalling my regular lenovo power management I realized that I probably didn't have the windows 7 version installed correctly when I tried that.

Just curious, is there any specific thing you use the Lenovo Power Management for? To me, most of the pre-installed, manufacturer programs just seem like bloatware.

[AlwaysFSX]

Disable and re-enable it. Win 8 likes to sometimes say your adapter is enabled, when it's not, hence the greyed out. Loves doing it to mine when I don't shut it down for over a week (typically use hibernate instead)

I would disable WiFi 2 for the time being seeing if it was stopping WiFi 1 from working.

[Hawkster16]

Disable and re-enable it. Win 8 likes to sometimes say your adapter is enabled, when it's not, hence the greyed out. Loves doing it to mine when I don't shut it down for over a week (typically use hibernate instead)

Tried that too. 

 

Just curious, is there any specific thing you use the Lenovo Power Management for? To me, most of the pre-installed, manufacturer programs just seem like bloatware.

Yeah, I though it was necessary for some reason  but I just uninstalled it (and reinstalled the driver like you said, but it still didn't work) and everything is going fine. It actually is less of a pain because I don't have to worry about it changing my power settings like it used to. Before it disabled my wireless LAN card because the "allow to disable to improve battery life" check was checked by default. 

 

I would disable WiFi 2 for the time being seeing if it was stopping WiFi 1 from working.

Just tried that too... No such luck.

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

Has this been an ongoing thing, or just a random issue? Good ol' restart could fix it, assuming you've yet to try that.

[Hawkster16]

Could my wireless LAN card just have been broken by my monkey business with the power button and battery? If it is how would I tell? That is what I suspected because the wireless adapter can connect but it cant.

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

If the card itself was broken, it wouldn't even show up under device manager, or under your connection adapters.

[Hawkster16]

Has this been an ongoing thing, or just a random issue? Good ol' restart could fix it, assuming you've yet to try that.

Just happened when I fixed my charging issue. I have restarted the computer several times after i had been using the computer offline (gaming) or using the wireless adapter to connect to the internet. Also I forgot to mention that when I tried using an Ethernet cable it worked.

[Hawkster16]

If the card itself was broken, it wouldn't even show up under device manager, or under your connection adapters.

Yeah, its still there.

 

[Hawkster16]

What's this?

 

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

What's this?

 

family thing.JPG

FE = FastEthernet, that's your Ethernet NIC

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

These are the network adapters I have with my laptop. I felt I could show you what some more looked like, so you could learn a bit, since I read you are just getting into computers

Your FE is a very generic Ethernet driver. Mine, is the Killer e2200 Gigabit NIC. So I get a much better, and descriptive name for my driver. Mine, is also not FE, it's techinicallt Gi (Gigabit). Followin my e2200 is a driver for Hyper-V's NIC's, since I have Hyper-V installed, Below that is the driver for my 802.11n WiFi card, in this case, a Realtek RTL8723AE NIC. Lastly, the other 2 adapters, are actually virtual adapters for VMWare VM's that I grant NICs.

Also, in case you were wondering, or didn't know, NIC= Network Interface card

[Benjio]

Found this on Lenovo's website: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht075865

"Somehow Lenovo Energy Managment version 8.0.2.3 does not let the customer to enable the wireless connection. When we remove the Lenovo Energy Managment version 8.0.2.3 or downgrade it to version 6.0.2.4 the problem will be solved."

 

It sounds like you may have already tried that though?

[Hawkster16]

These are the network adapters I have with my laptop. I felt I could show you what some more looked like, so you could learn a bit, since I read you are just getting into computers

Your FE is a very generic Ethernet driver. Mine, is the Killer e2200 Gigabit NIC. So I get a much better, and descriptive name for my driver. Mine, is also not FE, it's techinicallt Gi (Gigabit). Followin my e2200 is a driver for Hyper-V's NIC's, since I have Hyper-V installed, Below that is the driver for my 802.11n WiFi card, in this case, a Realtek RTL8723AE NIC. Lastly, the other 2 adapters, are actually virtual adapters for VMWare VM's that I grant NICs.

Also, in case you were wondering, or didn't know, NIC= Network Interface card

Thank you soooo much for this information! I know so many people that would find this boring, but it just makes me grin because I love learning about things I'm interested in and it's useful too! 

[Hawkster16]

Found this on Lenovo's website: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht075865

"Somehow Lenovo Energy Managment version 8.0.2.3 does not let the customer to enable the wireless connection. When we remove the Lenovo Energy Managment version 8.0.2.3 or downgrade it to version 6.0.2.4 the problem will be solved."

 

It sounds like you may have already tried that though?

Right now I just installed the windows 7 version of lenovo power management and am messing around in the settings to see if I can get it to work. I just realized though that if it didn't work with it uninstalled, then this probably won't help.

[Hawkster16]

This version probably isn't really compatible because it doesn't even recognize the battery.

 

[Benjio]

This version probably isn't really compatible because it doesn't even recognize the battery.

 

Yeah, honestly I would just uninstall the program all together, it seems to be doing more harm than good (you may want to consider just uninstalling all the Lenovo programs, unless you have a specific use for them). Do you know the model of your wifi card? You may have better luck going to the manufacturers website and trying their drivers instead of the ones on Lenovo's website.