[wallee]

I just bought a new laptop today. Compaq F750ca with Vista home premium.

The wireless card, Atheros AR5006X cannot be turned on. This is the message I find when I go to the device manager. When I check for an updated driver it says the best one is installed. There is no option to roll back the driver.

I have downloaded all the latest up dates from Microsoft and HP. When I try the slide switch on the front of the computer, regardless of which way I slide it I get a HP wireless assistant WLAN disabled notice.

When I click the Check for solutions button in the device manager, a window pops up saying it's checking and then nothing happens.

This was a display model, so it was already set up at the store. Is there a way to get into the BIOS with Vista? And would there even be a setting for disabling this? The last off lease laptop I bought had the wireless disable in the BIOS.

If I hook a wire up to the new comp I can get on the internet no problem.

Any and all suggestions for resolving this will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Sorry for a long post.

[wallee]

Just a follow up if any one else happens to have this problem. I ended up returning this comp and getting a new one. Sealed box.

It had the exact same problem out of the box. I spent almost two hours on the phone with HP tech support. While extremely patient and helpful they were unable to solve my problem.

Ultimately I ended up flashing the bios to the current version. Solved my problem in about 4 minutes.The installed version was three versions out of date.

Hopefully any one else with this problem find this solution before spending roughly 20 hours trying to get a new computer to work.

[Rich-M]

Wow good job! It never ceases to amaze me how mfgrs ship with old bios all the time.

[DaveA]

Originally Posted by Rich-M

Wow good job! It never ceases to amaze me how mfgrs ship with old bios all the time.

Could also be OLD stock that has been on the self for a while!

[wallee]

Originally Posted by DaveA

Could also be OLD stock that has been on the self for a while!

Could explain why it was so cheap and I got two with the same problem but it was the first the store had heard of it.

[DaveA]

Originally Posted by wallee

Could explain why it was so cheap and I got two with the same problem but it was the first the store had heard of it.

That is what most of the sales people with tell you.