HAVE WIRELESS NETWORK ISSUE . NEED HELP.

A friend of mine brought over an old laptop [IBM T40 type 2373] & asked me for some help. He had been using it wirelessly but was having some error messages that were preventing him from getting on line. At this point the laptop could view close by wireless networks including mine. Anyway I proceeded to address the issue, finding that the laptop had no anti-virus, anti-malware, nor any windows xp updates such as SP3. So I installed SP3, Malware bytes, which found 472 bad files, CCleaner, which took forever to clean. So after doing all this cleanup, I hook the laptop up to my wired network & was now able to get on line with no problem.
However, now the wireless feature will not see any local networks now. When I try to do a repair, the icon in the system tray which has a red X over it, has a little window that opens & says there one or more networks in range, click to open & view. When I do that, a window opens & states there are no networks in range. I have checked the network card in device mgr. & it is ok. I even found a driver for it & reinstalled same. Bottom line, it will not see any wireless nets at all. Sorry for the long post ..... BTW, I even disabled the wired network think that might be an issue...

http://www.cnet.com/products/thinkpa...4-1-tft/specs/

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Wireless capabilities IEEE 802.11b

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That laptop is so old that it only supports 802.11b. Unless your wifi router is set all the way down to 802.11b compatibility mode and WEP or no encryption, it won't connect. I don't know anyone that sets their routers down to that level anymore. I think you're better off using the wired connection, rather than put the rest of your network at risk.

Thanks for the reply Midknyte, . I am sort of 'out on a limb" here. I know the laptop is ancient, but he claims that he used his neighbors wireless system to access the internet. He has no wired systems at all. he is also a snowbird from Canada, so his stay here is very brief. if I could just get the unit to just see the local networks, I could go with that. As I stated before: the sys. tray icon says that there are networks in range, but it wont display them........

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but he claims that he used his neighbors wireless system to access the internet.

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Then his neighbor must have a super old wifi router.

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As I stated before: the sys. tray icon says that there are networks in range, but it wont display them........

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And as I stated, the laptop can only connect to 802.11b networks, unless he bought a different wifi card.
It's pretty rare to see anyone with 802.11g networks anymore, let alone 802.11b.
Even if someone is running their router in b/g/n/ac compatibility mode, they would probably be using WPA or WPA2 encryption.

Bottom line is the laptop is limited to 802.11b wifi standards. It only supports up to WEP encryption. Like I said before, you'd have to set your wifi router down to 802.11b compatibility and WEP encryption. If your router has a guest network, you could try configuring that instead of your main SSID.

XP is already insecure, but that's a whole different ball of wax.

I was just read some literature posted on Lenova's website & there was a mention of some machines having a radio button which is used for turning wireless on/off. I did not find any such button on this LT, but as I was pushing the F buttons ect, I noticed that the sys tray icon became connected to a birding network , whatever that is, but it still will not show any local nets such as mine...So its now connected to something but what ??

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I was just read some literature posted on Lenova's website & there was a mention of some machines having a radio button which is used for turning wireless on/off.

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Some systems have a physical button to disable the wifi, but that wouldn't affect the compatibility.

Are you sure it says "birding"? It might say binding, but you shouldn't have to mess with the network card bindings.

You didn't say your router's make/model yet. Even if backwards compatibility AKA mixed mode is enabled, chances are that you are using WPA or WPA2 encryption.

No matter what you do, the hardware is using super old standards. There's not much you can do about that, unless you lower your Wifi network back down to the old 802.11b limits.

It definitely says birding. I am really not concerned about connecting to my wireless system. All I want to do is to get the unit to SEE available networks as it did prior. Then I can give it back to him know that I did my best......

Like I said, unless the network is 802.11b compatible, the laptop won't see it. And it won't be able to connect to anything higher than WEP encryption. I'm not sure how to else to say it.

Just because it doesn't see your network, that doesn't mean the wifi card isn't working. SP3 changed the Wifi security, so that might have something to do with it. You could look for updated drivers for SP3, but even that's a longshot.

Ok Midknyte; thanks for your time anyway. All I know is that when he first brought the unit to me, I could see my wireless as well as some neighbors on the wireless netwrk list. Perhaps as you say: Sp3 could have changed that. Maybe I can undo that. I did do a system restore but it only went back a cpl of weeks & didn't help the situation. Anyway, I'll keep trying.. Have a great day .

there was one other problem that I wasn't too much concerned but maybe someone knows a fix. In booting up before you can access the desktop, a message titled "Windows Registry Recovery" Then it states: "One of the files containing the system's registry data had to be recovered by use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was successful" Then by clicking ok, it finishes booting to the desktop. I have did a sfc/scannow, a chkdisk but cannot resolve this issue. Any suggestions ?

There were a lot of core changes in SP3. You can keep fighting with it, but the fact is that the wireless hardware won't work with most current routers without extra configuration.

As for the registry issue, look at Shinomen's post here:
http://www.techspot.com/community/to...d-to-be.58264/

Thanks Midknyte; I had read about some of those registry issues on the web. I'm gonna dump this thing back into the owners hands. Tired of messing with it . I did however, manage to uninstall SP3 & now the wireless icon will show all of the neighboring networks. That's good enough for me. Thanks again..