About 3 months ago I purchased a used HP Pavilion ze4400 laptop. I'm fairly new to the laptop scene, so bear with me if I sound like I don't know what I'm talking about.
When I received my laptop I checked everything out on it. It started up and ran fine. No program errors, or hardward conflicts that I saw. I did however want to add another 256 meg of ram. I ordered some, installed it myself (not that that's any big accomplishment, but...) and the computer's speed improved. The only other thing that I wanted on the computer that it didn't have was wireless. The computer was equipped with a mini-pci slot, so I knew it could handle it, and many other of hp's pavilion ze4400 series laptops had them. So, after a bit of searching, I found the "stock" mini pci wireless card, and promptly got it off e-bay. I installed it, and the computer recognized it right away and installed the drivers that I downloaded from HP, with no hardware conflicts. Now this is where I get confused. I thought maybe the wireless signal at the university I attend would be strong enought that I wouldn't have to worry about having the antennas that the card is equipped for. However, I am unable to get ANY signal anywhere on campus. So I broke down and bought 2 antenna, pulled the back off the computer and installed them. They seemed secure, so I put everything back together, and hoped for the best. Still NOTHING! That's when I started to get ticked off. In my network settings, the wireless network is enabled, but it doesn't pick up any signal, even with all that! What am I doing wrong? Have I overlooked something? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
-Adrian
When I received my laptop I checked everything out on it. It started up and ran fine. No program errors, or hardward conflicts that I saw. I did however want to add another 256 meg of ram. I ordered some, installed it myself (not that that's any big accomplishment, but...) and the computer's speed improved. The only other thing that I wanted on the computer that it didn't have was wireless. The computer was equipped with a mini-pci slot, so I knew it could handle it, and many other of hp's pavilion ze4400 series laptops had them. So, after a bit of searching, I found the "stock" mini pci wireless card, and promptly got it off e-bay. I installed it, and the computer recognized it right away and installed the drivers that I downloaded from HP, with no hardware conflicts. Now this is where I get confused. I thought maybe the wireless signal at the university I attend would be strong enought that I wouldn't have to worry about having the antennas that the card is equipped for. However, I am unable to get ANY signal anywhere on campus. So I broke down and bought 2 antenna, pulled the back off the computer and installed them. They seemed secure, so I put everything back together, and hoped for the best. Still NOTHING! That's when I started to get ticked off. In my network settings, the wireless network is enabled, but it doesn't pick up any signal, even with all that! What am I doing wrong? Have I overlooked something? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
-Adrian
