Maximum PC

Hey everyone, I have for you an old laptop I'm helping a friend fix even though I suggest them getting a new laptop as this one is kinda slow and old but anyway its a HP DV6233SE with these specs:

1.6 GHz AMD Turion ™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-50
1024MB DDR2
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (UMA)
WD 160GB HDD
Super Multi 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
15.4" WXGA High-Definition Brightview Widescreen
Windows XP PRO 32Bit

Ok so here is the problem, If anyone is familiar with this series of laptops they have a button at the front left of the case that allows for the wireless to be turned on/off. this laptop according to HP has a Wireless 802.11B/G card in it and recently I took it apart to find that it is in where the memory and hard drive are located and attached to two antennas, well it seems since my friend has had this laptop its never had wireless and they figured it didn't come with it but had a button with an orange light for no reason. I've searched all over this laptop as to why it doesn't allow for the wireless to work. I've tried drivers.. no help as windows nor the BIOS sees the card. I've looked on the board. taken the card out which looks fine. I honestly don't know what to do other than to buy a replacement card which I've found a $4 new one on ebay which would replace it. I recently was fixing a friends similar HP DV6 laptop that had wireless. this model was a DV6589US which has an Intel core 2 processor and is maybe a year newer then the other DV6 why would it have three cables for antennas rather than the two with this DV6?

Any help would be great.. Thx

If you know someone with a usb plug-in card, try it before buying anything new. If the usb card finds the net, you know for sure that the on-board card is dead. With that old laptop I wouldn't bother buying something from e- bay that probably won't work, I would stick with what works and that would ba a usb plug-in if in fact it did.

As for two cables verses three cables I would venture a guess it is for better reception at any angle to the transmitter.

Nasty

Thanks again nasty, I read more into the other laptops card and it seems that the antenna is for Bluetooth. Although this laptop doesn't come with Bluetooth my guess is that it had the option for bluetooth at one point. I have a USB wifi stick but it would be easier if the card for wifi wasn't sticking out. It does have some sort of slot where the media center remote goes but im not sure what it is, pcim.. Or express slot. My guess was that the card went bad but I did some searching and it turns out hp knew these brodcom 2505 cards were no good and at the time switching them for Intel cards as they broke down.


Sent from my iPhone.

Then the card you want to buy off the e-bay site had better be the Intel card or don't buy it.

Nasty

1. Max the RAM

2. Buy a USB N-protocol 300gbps or greater Wifi dongle and plug it in. Then who cares what the lappy came with?

3. Update any BIOS, HDD or ODD firmware.

Get the last drivers available for everything on an USB drive (or even better slipstream it with SP3 and a post-SP3 update pack).

Clean install the OS with a long format on the drive to map the sectors (or better yet download the HDD mfg. diag test app and do a long write test on that old HDD since XP only reads not writes to the sectors when it tests.).

Remove any crapware (if). Final Windows Updates.

Test and tweak.

it is, I actually found one from a newer model that uses the same setup card for wifi as this laptop and supports N300 rather than just the G 54Mb that it came with.

If you buy it keep us informed as how things worked out for you.

Nasty