laptop suddenly can't find wireless networks

[ATHiker95]

My laptop (Dell 600M) suddenly lost ability to find wireless networks. It was working fine in the morning, but when I came home from work, it suddenly quit working.

Device Manager indicates the device is working properly.

I had been using JWire off and on as an added security, but my subscription lapsed about the same time as this problem surfaced. I don't think that has anything to do with it, since I was not utilizing the JiWire program at home (I used it mainly at coffee shops, since it offered a VPN connection). Nonetheless, I uninstalled it. Still no go.

What would happen if I go in and uninstall the driver for the internal adapter? Would Windows find it and reinstall it once again when the computer rebooted? Would that be a good plan?

Or should I use System Restore and go back to where it was working?

Or do you think downloading and installing an updated driver would work?

Or is it more likely that the thing is just toast for some reason? (laptop is about 4-5 years old).

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

[ATHiker95]

Well, I figured it out. I downloaded and installed the new driver. It introduced a new Intel icon to my systray which showed that my radio was off. I was pretty sure I had tried FCN + F2 before, but I tried it again and voila, it turned the radio back on and I'm back in business. I suspect that while I was gone to work, my cat paraded across the keyboard and hit that FCN and F2 combo and that was that. Nice that the icon now shows if the radio is off.

Mark