Hello all, don't come around anymore since started working again, but that might change since I was laid off again....



Anyways, got a little computer issue. It has something to do with my network adapter/Wi-Fi. My Wi-Fi light hasn't been coming on on my computer the past few days, and I haven't been able to connect to the internet. It has one of the internal cards(whatever it came with, it's a Dell Inspiron 6000).



Whenever I went into the Control panel/System/Hardware/ and then Devices....It at certain times would show all the different devices/hardware it uses to do the wireless. At certain times it wouldn't, all the while no matter what, no Wi-Fi light showing up. Whenever I would scan for recent hardware changes, if it "wasn't" showing up, they would suddenly show up, and sometimes work, and sometimes not.



At times when it finally did end up working, and I got connected to the internet, it would only work for a few minutes, and then my computer would 100% freeze up, not able to do anything. I would get a blue screen with whole bunch of mumbo jumbo about a hardware change or something like that caused my computer to malfunction or cause the system to halt(I have gotten two seperate screens at times)...Could it be a virus of some kind?



I know this is probably worded horribly because I am trying to get it all typed out before my computer freezes up again on me.



Any help appreciated greatly. I know I got some questions to answer since this is a sloppy post.

 

It may be time to do a fresh install of windows. Do you have a recovery disk?



I'd suggest logging into Dell and looking for driver updates. They can scan your computer to get the Service Tag (unless it's on the bottom/back of your computer) and offer specific driver updates for your model.

 

My computer crashed a few months ago and Windows was installed then. Has worked fine up until past 2 days or so.



Going to Dell.com was on my list of things to do. "if my computer stays up long enough to do so.

 

Reinstall windows. That's pretty much the course of action for all windows problems.



Guys. I know I've said this a bunch. Check out this webiste http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop



Ubuntu is an operating system which is free. It's also invulnerable to the plagues of viruses for a variety of technical reasons which we won't get into here. I'd recommend using it as a primary operating system. I've got my non-technical wife running Ubuntu and using Microsoft Office 2007 on it.



At a bare minimum, if nothing else, once you reinstall windows, make a copy of Ubuntu Desktop edition and install it from within windows. The worst thing that can happen is when a virus crashes windows, you've got a backup. At startup, it will ask you to hit a key to boot into Ubuntu or go into windows.



Having a dual boot system gives you a starting point to troubleshoot from. You can see if it's Windows, or the hardware. If the hardware works, then reinstall windows. However, Microsoft Windows is a security hole, so I'd recommend not using that and fully switching to the more reliable Ubuntu becasue of the following staticstics



My wife's computer problems

Windows:

~20 my computer won't connect to the internet

~5 how do I?

~5 I think it's a virus (and it was, required reformatting each time)



Ubuntu:

~20 how do I? (it's a new operating system)

1 my computer won't connect to the internet (and I put in the password)

 

that sounds more like a wireless card going out or loose. Check the loose one first of course then look into borrowing or getting a different card to test and see what happens.



southern ohio? where are you at? my shop is 5 minutes from ironton ohio.