Wireless softswitch is off - can I override it?

Hi. i have a Sony vaio laptop and I changed the wireless card inside to a Dell 1390.

I had some trouble so i restored the laptop with the restore disks.

Then when I started Sony's "Wireless Switch Utility", it disabled my wireless card through software (the light turned off but the switch at teh front is still on), and the wireless card wasn't found (so i couldn't turn it back on).

i tried uninstalling sony#s utility, I've tried installing dell's wireless utility (but it refuses to start) and now i'm left with no wireless.

Is there a program to override vaio's software switch so i can enable the wireless?

 

Have you installed the drivers(not the utility) for the dell card? What O/S are you running?

 

There are 2 pins on the Mini-PCIe that will circumvent the hardware wireless "on/off" switch. Also, the Dell 1390 is a Broadcom BCM4311KFBG reference, and Windows 7 ships with hardware drivers for that. I'd say if you're going so far as to restoring, why not go ahead and do a clean install and get rid of all the Sony crapware? A clean Win7 install would have none of the issues you are having.

 

sorry i should be more specific. When I say restore, i meant re-install windows 7, and then use the online downloads from vaio support that installs all the drivers and some selected utilities.

It was a lovely install for an hour and the dell card worked straight away, I only installed the wireless switch utility so i can disable bluetooth to save battery life.

the dell utility installed another driver as well, but neither made the card turn on.


I dont' understand what you are implying about the minipcie pins. if they circumvent the hardware wireless switch that means it will always work even if the switch is off. at the moment it doesn't work when the switch is on.

 

Also the strangest thing is right afterinstalling the wirelessswitch utility and realising it turned off the wireless, i did a system restore to just before that and the wireless stayed off :-(

 

The Sony SmartWi connection software is horrible anyway. I say restore Windows 7 once more, and upon completing installation, the only software you NEED for your VAIO to function are the Vaio Shared Library, Vaio Notebook Utilities, and Vaio Event Service. Bluetooth can be disabled/enabled in the Device Manager. Having to turn it on/off from there can be tedious, but it's the cleanest way. And as far as other drivers go, get them from places other than Sony. Sony won't update drivers unless there is a major flaw or some similar circumstance.

And about the pins on the Mini-PCIe... when those two pins are covered, then the only place that can enable/disable the card would be the device manager. Taping or covering those pins goes completely around the hardware on/off switch.

 

Here is a link to the pin mod on mpci-e cards
Index of ./CF-30 Upgrade to 802.11N Intel 4965 Fix/



Alex

 

Thanks Alex! Just what I was looking for. I was fixing to take my card out of my old Acer and see which pin it was.

 

ok I'll try a reinstall.

I don't see why you would want to disable the wireless switch?? surely it's not that bad having the option to turn all wireless off so easily.


also, when i disabled bluetooth in device manager previously (before sony made the wireelss switch utility for windows 7) the bluetooth light never actually went off so i thought it wasn't actually turning it off as much.

 

It's needed sometimes only if hardware has been changed
It's a workaround to get the wi-fi card working
I don't know if thats the case on your sony , but some manufactures have a wireless device whitelist in the bios that will not allow upgrades of the wireless card



Alex