I have an ASUS P5E3 802.11g Wifi motherboard. I think the adapter may be dead. Have any of you heard of the following happening:1. you install OS, set up your Wifi, and connect to the 'net. Download all SP's etc. Everything is working great.2. you hook up your USB external hard drive, to copy some other files to the new machine.3. The Wifi quits working. You go to Control Panel|Device Manager and see that the "802.11g Wireless Adapter" entry is not merely flagged, but it is completely GONE. Hmm...4. You unhook the USB hard drive, and reboot, hoping that will wake up the Wifi. No go.5. You attempt to rescan hardware to see if the OS can find the adapter. No go. You attempt to "Add New Hardware..." even going so far as to use your Adapter's CD to manually load the driver, etc. etc. Still *no go*.6. You check the machine's BIOS to make sure the Wifi adapter is actually still enabled. You see that it is, yet you still have no wifi. You switch the BIOS entry off, reboot, then switch it on again, and reboot. Still no go.At that point, what you do next? Assume that the USB external hard drive somehow shorted out the wifi on the motherboard? Have any of you heard of this happening?

Nope!Is there a BIOS update that might bring everything back. I know you said your BIOS said wifi was there, but that's not right ,is it.Bob

Nope!Is there a BIOS update that might bring everything back. I know you said your BIOS said wifi was there, but that's not right ,is it.Bob

heh, you're right, the BIOS claims it is there...but it is most assuredly not working. I went out and bought one of those little Netgear USB wifi adapters, and have disabled the onboard Wifi. (which was redundant, since it didn't work anyway) But here's my problem: Now, I have to RETYPE my WEP key each time I reboot the machine, before I can connect! It is quite annoying, and I've been scouring the net trying to figure out why. All V64 sp's and updates (including driver updates) have now been installed, too! Have you come across anything like this Bobbyjack? I'm afraid I'm not the biggest network guru in the world...

I'm not either, but if you'll tell me what OS you are using, I can tell you where to look to see if your computer is remembering your key. You typed V64, does that mean Vista?If it does, try this:After you turn on the comuter, but before you type your key.Control Panel/Network and Sharing Center/Manage Network Connections( on the left)/double click Wireless Network Connection/Wireless Properties/Security(tab)/Network security key should have a series of dots representing your key. Probably not, so type it in now and hit OK. Restart.This time when your key is gone, change to windows control of wireless connections. Or you could do that first. I seem to remember having a computer that would not remember the key, and it was OK after switching to windows control.Bob

Bob,Yes I am running Vista64 Ultimate.Last night I did as you suggest. The problem isn't that the WEP key is gone from the blank; the problem is that Windows does not seem to be applying the key that is there, upon boot...not sure why yet.However, I am following this thread:http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=239162...and I am going to try to see if there is something in my NetGear router software to allow Windows to control the connection. Also, this concept of a "Preferred Network"...is something I will have to look into also.

MaceTry this. Uninstall everythig about your netgear adaptor. Reistall just the drivers in a folder somewhere. Plug in the adaptor. When Vista wants to install softwear for it, point it to the drivers folder. Then Vista should control wireless connections. I believe Vista wants to control wireless by default. We turn that off by installing adaptor software.Good luckBob

MaceTry this. Uninstall everythig about your netgear adaptor. Reistall just the drivers in a folder somewhere. Plug in the adaptor. When Vista wants to install softwear for it, point it to the drivers folder. Then Vista should control wireless connections. I believe Vista wants to control wireless by default. We turn that off by installing adaptor software.Good luckBob

Well, I fought it for 3 hours last night, and did everything I know to do, and still the machine is not automatically connecting on bootup. With software, without software, with Netgear's SmartWizard, without Netgear's SmartWizard, didn't matter. (!)The only thing I did not try, was making it a "private" network vs. a "public" network (right now it's public).

MaceSorry, I seem to be wasting your time.Do you ever use a registry cleaner? I use two free ones that have saved my bacon a many times. Many people (me included) are wary of free software. But CCleaner and Glay Utilities are really good. As you know, when you uninstall anything, parts of it are left behind in the registry. Sometimes there are conflicts.I use a Linksys router and usb adaptors, and don't have much trouble in XP or Vista. What I do have trouble with, sometimes, is mixing wired and wireless Computers on the same router. It's supposed to work, but some wired computers won't go on line, or if thay do, they block some other computer. Usually a wireless one.Bob

Nah no time wasted, it's always a learning experience. At work we have LinkSys equipment, perhaps that is the route to take next time.This is a clean OS install/clean registry, or at least it was clean when I started all of this :)I almost went ahead and upgraded to WinXP 64 but I decided to tough it out with Vista64 until I rebuild the machine next year. I bet i wouldn't have any trouble with XP64. My XP32 machine works flawlessly and fast.

I sure am starting to think that your Asus is toast.Bob

The onboard wifi seems to be toast, anyway. I hope the whole board doesn't go out. I was kind of hoping to get 2 years out of the build.

MaceTry this. Uninstall everythig about your netgear adaptor. Reistall just the drivers in a folder somewhere. Plug in the adaptor. When Vista wants to install softwear for it, point it to the drivers folder. Then Vista should control wireless connections. I believe Vista wants to control wireless by default. We turn that off by installing adaptor software.Good luckBob

I'd just like to post that I have solved the problem, and in the case of this Netgear adapter, it seems to work the opposite way...it wants its own software to control, and not Vista. I could not get it to autostart using Vista only.I also learned a new command:netsh wlan show settings...will display the current config of your adapter vis a vis the OS. Not sure if that is an XP command.

Thanks for posting your fix. Things like that are good to know.Bob