Help - wireless connetion problems

[debih]

Yesterday my sister gave me an Acer Aspire One notebook. She set it up on our wireless network no problem - the connections avaialble showed up, she clicked on our sky one, put in our password and away we went.

I was merrily surfing the net on it last night but after about two hours it just lost signal.

When I went to reconnect the Sky connection was not showing as being there. I asked for a list of avaialble connections and it didn't show any. I checked on the laptop and that was connected and working okay and was showing a list of available connections. My sisters tablet was working okay, as were the girls ipod touches and Micks kindle - all on the Sky network. Even when we turned all of them off the notebook still couldn't find any available networks.

I have brought it to work with me today. When I have tried to find networks with the Kindle it shows what is available although I can't get on any as they are all secure. The notebook doesn't find any.

The little green light that was on constantly showing wireless connection was on is now either flickering or off.

Have I touched something I shouldn't have done??????????????????

[meriad]

Debih, not sure if the notebook is the same as my laptop, but I seem to recall that my mom (who also has an Acer Laptop) had a connection problem. And what we did (from memory) is hold the blue FN button on the bottom left of the keyboard at the same time as F3 which has the wireless picture thing with it.

That reactivated the actual Wi-Fi of the laptop.... (I gather it's the equivalent of airplane mode on smart phones)

do you have the same buttons? If yes press them and see what happens

[debih]

Aha - I have found a little switch just underneath the keyboard and now I have flicked it the little satellite dish icon is flashing on and off in orange. I can't try it out yet as I am at work so will give it a go when I get home.

But for anyone that knows Acer - there are three little icons on the top of the keyboard. Two are little locks - one with a number 1 in and one with a letter A in. And there is a sort of litle square book like thing. They all have light indicators just above although none are lit.

The little book icon seems to flash green every now and again and we thought it was something to do with the internet connection but now I don't think it is.

Any ideas what they are for?

Edited to add I now know that the two locks are for the number and letter locks but still don't know what the little book like icon is for.

[meriad]

well the locks with the number and letter in them indicate if you've got caps lock and number lock on or off. I suspect the one that looks like books is either the scroll lock (so you cannot use your up/down arrows) or and I think this is more likely as it flashes - the indicator that your hard drive is busy working....

[debih]

Thats the one - it looks like a book.

Thanks Ria - I will try to connect again when I get home from work.

Got to go now - 2pm beckons which means no more surfing the internet at work.

[Suff]

Hi Debih,

The satellite dish icon is for your wifi. If it's off then your wifi is off. I expect that it will work now as I expect it was controlled by a physical switch.

The little book like icon is your hard disk. It will flash on and off when the operating system is accessing the hard drive. When you start the netbook it should be almost solidly on most of the time. When in normal operation it should flicker every now and again. If it stays on for extended periods when you are using it normally, you have run out of memory and need to either close applications or get more memory for the device (not sure you can do this with an Aspire One).

Hope that helps.

[debih]

Thanks Suff.

Its working again. I had obviously just caught the silly little wifi switch!!!