Broken Wireless Hardware Switch Fix - Page 4

WOW!! The pin 13 tape thing worked!  I tried four or five different Toshiba Value added packs for my Toshiba 1905-301 and nothing helped.  I even went so far as dissemble the whole machine to check the toggle switch on the side of the computer.  All seemed to be good except nothing worked!  There was never an "allowed" FN-F8 toggle and even now the light does not light up on the front of the machine indicating that wireless is on... but it is on now!  I have a feeling that the tape works becuase it shields the input of a voltage to the pin 13.  The chipset on the wireless card does not see a "deny" voltage (becuase of the tape) so it goes to an on state.  it works very similar to the old copy protection on the cartiridges for the Color Computer by Radio Shack (LOL).. When the on board chipset saw a voltage applied to one of the pins, it would secure the high memory as non-writable and fill it with the chip in the cartridge.  When it was denied this voltage, it would fill it in volatile memory and therefore allow someone to copy the area out to a file.

 (mind you that was the copy protection from 25 years ago and tape defeated it...)

Hi i'm from italy and this "cheat" worked on my sony vaio vgn nr10e atheros mini pci express. Now my wifi led switch doen't light up anymore even if set "on"! but the wireless card still works good and doesn't disable anymore when moving my pc. Thank you very much!

this is the italian traslation to make this post more visible in italy!

Questa soluzione di applicare il nasto isolante sul pin 20 ha funzionato perfettamente per il problema dello switch del wireless che si spegneva per il mio sony vaio vgn-nr10e. Prima muovendo il pc il wireless si spegneva perchè l'interruttore faceva contatto. E' bastato smontare il pc, togliere la scheda di rete atheros e applicare un micro pezzo di nastro isolante sul pin 20. Per riconoscere il pin 20 basta prendere la scheda, girarla dal lato "verde" ovvero il lato inferiore, localizzare l'incisione e contare 2 pin dall' incisione sulla parte sinistra ovvero quella parte dove sono presenti piu pin, la piu grande insomma. Spero aiuti qualcuno.

Thank you so much for this fix.

I have a gateway T6321. As with the other posts, the switch broke and I had to fiddle with it to be able to turn the internet on everytime the PC started. Putting tape on the 20th pin seems to work great. I tried to buy the part to replace the switch, but could not find it. Then I disassemble the whole thing to improvise a solution, but that didn't work.

The blue wireless light does not turn on, but the computer connects well now (no more fiddling!). I started this account to thank you for figuring this out.  

Man you are the best! thank you very much. I signed to this forum only to say THANK YOUU!!!!!!!

Works like magic on Lenovo x61 notepad  intel 4965AGN

Thanks!

I am a bit blown away by the fact that this works.  I just volunteered to help my neighbor with her computer, and after wiping the OS and reinstalling, and spending a couple hours just finding the right wireless driver (Great Quality ZX-5360 laptop from Fry's - drivers here http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Product/Product_Detail.aspx?CategoryID=3&DetailID=520&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=93&LanID=0), the wireless card was working but not "on".  So I came across this thread, and was skeptical, but proceeded, and I put a small piece of tape on the 13th pin of the mini pci card, restarted the machine, and it detected wireless networks.  Unbelievable - I am still in a bit of shock.  Thanks, and praise be to the internet and its wealth of information which allows me to fix old crap.
 

Addendum to the post above - my card only worked intermittently now, and so searching the web for similar tape ideas, I found a forum that mentioned to tape BOTH pins 11 and 13.  It works better now, although the card still takes a while to solidify a signal, but that's probably because the computer is old and crappy, but it still does cut out a bit here and there.  Still, if you have a similar problem, try taping both pins.
 

Yeah - that seems to help definitely, and once the computer is on for a while, it seems to even eventually "solidify" its hold on the signal. 
 

OMG, If i could reach out and hug you and give you like a $5 tip I would.

I recently switch the hardware switch on my old laptop (my wife's comptuer now) to off by accident.  When I turned it back on, windows would not recognize it as enabled. FN+f2 wouldn't work either.   I reinstalled drivers, reinstall windows 7.  Nothing.  I was like FML.

I started searching the internetz for soldering the HW switch and came across this thread.  5 minutes later (10 screws to get the back cover off, 2 screws for the mini express pci, scotch tape to pin 20 knife to remove excess tape, put everything back together) and I have internet on the laptop again.  Thank you so very very  much.

I mean it still looks like it thinks it's disabled (the wifi light doesn't light up anymore) but Windows can find and connected to networks.  I'm just so happy.

I have finally found this thread after an hour of searching and trying uninstall/reinstall the driver for the Intel Wifi Link 5300  PCI Express. The half height card I used was installed fine in a Dell Inspiron 1545. No problem at all, drivers installed and the wireless reception, signal strength and N support is right there at 300Mbps.

On our Toshiba 230D (which is a pain in a** to take apart), I installed the same card. They're $10 on ebay after all so I got 2. After installing the hardware, I was expecting the same behaviour (drivers installed automagically with Windows 7). But alas,no. Doing the Intel diagnostics showed that the "hardware radio" was off. So yeah, same problem.

And same solution.

Using this as a better diagram of all pinouts, I put a 1mm width of tape OVER pin #20. This is on the underside of the card as the even number pins are on the underside and only pin 1 and 51 are numbered on the Intel mini cards. Other cards have more pin #s decribed. The old mini PCI express card I was replacing had pin #18 described for example. So that means that pin #20 is 1 to the LEFT of PIN #18. The orientation is with the antenna "jacks" (round small pins, 2 or 3 of them near the top of the card) are facing DOWN on your workspace (the "backside" of the card). This is how you find pin #20.

Note the picture above is showing a "full height" PCI express card. Many are half height ("mini") but the pin location is the same.

So yeah, put everything back together (about 20 screws inside and outside the laptop) and like magic the hardware radio is now permanently on and there is no way to turn it off, like you'd actually ever want to.

In any case, $10 saved and most importantly a working fast 802.11n 5Ghz connection with our new Dark Knight Asus RT-66U router which rocks the house!

Hi guys, I have replaced an Atheros card with Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 in my Sony Vaio NW-20EF/S, wifi is working great (Intel Proset drivers) but Windows 7 64-bit doesn't see the Bluetooth part; was wondering if there is a pin on the card that's responsible for switching bluetooth on/off. Have taped over the pin 20 but the Bluetooth's still not working. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Ha, Sony has a driver for Intel 6235 http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/SVS13A1C5E/downloads/INDWLL-00265236-0042_6290     but it doesn't activate the bluetooth unless I'm doing something wrong

http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/SVS13A1C5E/downloads/INDWLL-00265236-0042_6290