Radio disabled on WiFi Link 5100

[DSwag]

I have an ASUS G60Vx laptop with a Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN card. The laptop has two hard drives and I can boot Windows 7 from either of them. With one OS there is no WiFi capability because the WiFi Radio is off (even though it is not physically off) and with the other OS the WiFi works fine.

I have downloaded the version 14.3.2.1 driver for the Link 5100 and installed on both OS's. So the problem is not with the driver and it is not with the hardware.

In poking around in the registry I have found that the value for RadioEnable is 0 for the system with the problem and it is 1 for the system that works in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0011. This seems to be a major clue. But how is this value set without modifying the registry directly?

Dick

[Jose_H_Intel1]

Sometimes the system manufacturers include a software switch along with the hardware switch. I suggest you contact them for further assistance. Using Intel® Proset may also help but it will not override other types of radio switches provided by the OEM.

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/cs-020275.htm Intel� Wi-Fi Products; Wireless radio cannot be enabled from software

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-025791.htm Intel� Wi-Fi Products; Switch the Wi-Fi radio on using Intel� PROSet/Wireless Software

[AWhit19]

I tried both the Intel WIFI Link 5100 and 5300 series and both had the issue of not being able to turn the radio on my Toshiba laptop... after many hours surfing the net tonight I stumbled across a video that made my 5300 work and assume that the 5100 would work with the same fix.

The problem is that with older laptops they used a switch to turn on the radio... and the likes of Toshiba, ASUS and many other brands need to whitelist the Mini-PCI-E WLAN card in the bios to enable the ability to turn on the radio, if like me your laptop is rather old then you could try and ask the manufacture to see if they have updated the BIOS to support the newer WLAN card or if they haven't then you could always attempt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzAKcmlaH1M How to fix Intel 5100 5300 Mini-PCIE WLAN WIFI Radio on Issue (Covering Pin 20) - YouTube as this method worked for me but you should be aware it could void warranty's and even damage your hardware.