Hi everyone,

I found this site and thread on google on the same problem. I have a Toshiba Satellite 1135-S125 and recently bought the Intel 2200. I tried covering pins 11 and 13 with finger nail polish, but it still tells me wireless off in the intel pro software. Maybe I have the antennas backwards? There's a brown-ish color wire and a white one, not sure which is main and which is aux. I've tried both ways and it still tells me the hardware switch is off.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks everyone!

Matt

I was just about to chuck a broadcom a/b/g (dell 1450) interface card when I came across the posts. I was installing it in a newer Satellite P25 system and
the same problem listed happened. Covered the pins and bingo, card works
perfect. The only thing I don't understand is that I have a Satellite 5205
that I installed the same card in 6mos ago with out any problems. Works
perfect with no mods and my controls and switches work fine. Oh well...
Thanks again.

remember that the pins are even on one side of the card and odd on the other. pins 11 and 13 are next to each other on the odd side of the card, this is covered earlier in the thread.

Hello every body its the first time for me to join to this forum i have the same problem but my toshiba A30 and i Buy It with WIFI built in so i guess my problem is too hard or my laptop need to return to the toshiba warranty i don't know but if any body have any answer please tell me and thanks all

I am using a Toshiba Satellite 5205 and I'm trying to install an MSI MP54G4 minPCI wireless card. Windows picks it up, the radio light is on, but it will not find any networks, including the one sitting right here. It actually picks it up on very low for a short period and then loses it. I covered 11 & 13 and have the same results.

Any ideas? My dlink pcmia card picks up quite a few networks.

sounds like it may be weak signal, is there an internal antenna and is it hooked up to the wireless card?

do you have a lot of metal around in the room or in the walls?
Do you have your computer near a large CD collection?
These items will absorb or reflect signals.

ICUB4UCME, I'm guessing it is an internal antenna. There inside there were two wires underneath a piece of tape. There isn't an abundance of metal or cds around.

bump!

Hoping this wasn't a waste of money.

Do I need to remove the tape?

if you are referring to the shrinkwrap like was on set of antennae then its not a bad idea to remove it before you snap them onto the card. i started with a piece of electrical tape on them to keep them from touching the cover then cut up an anti-static bag and used it on the cover so i wouldn't have to mess with electrical tape every time.

I just wanted to report that this trick work for me too, notebook is Compal barebone with intel i810 chinpset. Wireless card intel 2915 a/b/g. It work on linux and win2k. The led problem is still not solved, hardware wireless switch works (I get a msg window saying, that wireless is on or off depending on switch position), but it doesn't affect a wireless connectivity. Only software turn off or on is working.
I'm eager to play more with my barebone notebook to make wireless fully working. What is the best way to start diging in? is it to try to switch 11 and 13 pins places (dont know how to do that now) or is it searching for notebook switch which could do the trick?

Liutas

This trick work for Toshiba Satellite A30 and Radlink RT2500 series MiniPCI.
Any update for LED and hardware switch?

Not from my side.

I have an uniwill 259 ultra pro and I'm having the same problem with my wireless card. It is an Intel Proset/wireless 2915abg and when I press Fn+F2 nothing happens and I can't switch the radio on. Can anyone help?

report another good experience!
toshiba satellite 1135-s125 works with this pin insulation method. Initially i use nail polish, when i start computer it has connection, i am so happy. but it's gone after 2 mins. I have to open again, i found the insulation is not good, i remove all polish instead of using scotch tape. it works now. make sure the tap cover a little bit edge, so when you insert, the slot will not remove it. thanks a lot!!!

this model computer has two antena ready, also switch on the left side, but it doesn't work as mentioned in previous posts, Fn + F8 doesn't work either. I don't care that much frankly speaking.

I bought the intel 2200 BG from ebay, actually there is "toshiba" text on the label of the card. It can not directly run.

By the way, whoever find this workaround, he/she must be inside person of either Tosiba or Intel. the number of combination by trying is more than combination of mega million jackport.

Another report of success with a Satellite 1135-S125. I have an Intel 2915ABG wireless miniPCI card. Could simply not get it to work, until I covered pins 11 and 13 with tape.
Still no response with the hardware switch or with Fn+F8.
But, it works well with my home wireless router.
Thanks for this info!!

I purchased a Toshiba L25-S1196 the night before Thanksgiving at CompUSA...it was supposed to include integrated wireless but did not. Bought a mini-PCI card from NewEgg and had to do the "pins 11 and 13" trick, but now realize I don't see an ANTENNA anywhere in there...so maybe it's back to the drawing board? I don't know if I'm up for disassembling the whole machine just to drop a couple of wires inside...but without it, there's very little signal.

Any suggestions from the field? Should I just bag it and go back to the PC Card, RMA the mini-PCI and chalk it up to experience?

yeah, probably best to rma the internal card if you aren't comfortable with disassmbly. laptops are typically a pain in the **** to get open anyway. nothing like a scavenger hunt for an unknown number of screws, then keeping them all organized long enough to put them together again.

on another note, i've been working on finding a wireless card from an 1135 (like i've got) which proves to be a very dificult task. i tried a wireless card from one of the A-series of laptops thinking that being its a toshiba branded wireless card from a toshiba laptop it just might have the right pinout to work with the switch but, alas, not even that could be made to function without the 11-13 trick.

Hi All,

I too had a problem when installing an Intel 2200BG wifi card in a Tosh Tecra S1 which did'nt come with wifi. After reading this thread I tried the old "tape over pins 11 and 13" trick which worked. However I was still annoyed that my hardware switch didnt function as it was supposed to. As I had an array of Tosh Tecra S1's available to me, I swapped out the wifi card from one unit that came pre-installed and tried my "new" intel 2200BG card in it. Low and behold it worked quite happily. Which indicated that it was nothing at all to do with the new card I bought. That coupled with the fact that the hardware switch (when it works correctly with a laptop that has wifi installed from the factory) will come on during BIOS boot lead me to the BIOS. So I went to the Tosh website, downloaded the latest BIOS drivers, flashed the BIOS and rebooted the laptop........THE HARDWARE SWITCH NOW WORKS!!!! I think I even vagually remember seeing someone mention the BIOS at the beginning of this thread. Hopefully this might help someone

Well gang, I've packaged up the mini-PCI card and am having remorse about that -- I worked so hard, ordered the card, studied, researched, got the tape over pins 11 and 13, had it all working except for no signal, couldn't find any antenna wires.

What is anyone else's experience with the whole internal antenna thing? Would it be really REALLY obvious to me if there was in fact an antenna inside the non-wi-fi laptop? Or would I have to dig for it? I'm just not convinced and I hate to nail the coffin shut if there's maybe still an antenna floating around in there.

Thanks,
KC