win7 wifi shows as disconnected when actually connected

[nite_monkey]

Windows strikes again! I'm running windows 7 pro x64 on my Dell Vostro 1520, and for the longest time the wifi on it worked perfectly fine, and the icon in the system tray showed my signal strength. But here recently it just shows the little red x that appears when you are not connected to the internet. However, when I click on the icon, it shows that I am indeed connected to the internet. I've tried uninstalling the drivers so that I could reinstall them, but you know how windows is. Even if you uninstall the drivers for something, you aren't really uninstalling the drivers. So when I went to the device manager and told it to search for new hardware, it found my wifi card, and reinstalled the drivers (the ones that I supposedly removed) It is very annoying that that stupid icon always shows me as being disconnected. I use that icon to tell whenever my internet randomly decides to die on me. (it has been going out every five minutes here recently) Any help on fixing this would be really appreciated.

[40hz]

Three suggestions:

1. Check to the adapter properties to see if you have the IPv6 protocol enabled. If you're not using IPv6 (and most of us still aren't) try disabling it and doing a restart.

2. If you're using a 3rd-party utility to control your adapter - don't. Try using the built-in controls in Win7 unless there's some feature in the manufacturer's utility you really can't live without.

3. If you've installed Apple's iTunes on your system, try temporarily disabling the Bonjour service and see if the problem goes away. For some odd reason Bonjour occasionally causes weird problems when running under Win 7. Not that it was all that cooperative a piece of software before Windows 7. You'll usually see this start to happen right after a software update to iTunes or Windows.

Luck!

[nite_monkey]

1. I tried disabling it, and restarted (problem still there)
2. I have a third party tool, not for my built in wifi, it is for my usb card that I use to connect my ds to the internet.
3. I hate iTunes, and therefore do not have it installed.

2b. I uninstalled the third party tool, and after restarting my laptop, the problem is still there.

[Stoic Joker]

Hm... iTunes is not the only place one can pickup a Bonjour virus infection. Some of HP's printer drivers have begun installing it also. Either that of Dell started including it for some insane reason. Point being check and be tripple sure it ain't there before checking it off the list.

However a Bonjour virus infection typically actually does completely cripple the machines ability to do anything properly on the wire. So I'm wondering if it might just be mild case Icon Cache corruption.

[40hz]

So I'm wondering if it might just be mild case Icon Cache corruption.

-Stoic Joker (October 07, 2011, 11:17 AM)

@SJ - Oooooo...now that's a clever thought! Hadn't though of that angle.

[nite_monkey]

I've checked the add/remove program list, and never ran across  Bonjour. I guess I could look again to be sure. What would I need to do to check if it is an icon cache corruption?

edit:just got home from college, and when I woke up my laptop (from the screensaver, not standby or hibernation) the icon has now changed to the icon of the signal bars with the yellow * on top.
edit2:after restarting my laptop, the icon is now back to the red x

[4wd]

If you've got CCleaner installed, you could try enabling Tray Notification Cache, like so:

[nite_monkey]

just tried ccleaner, after restarting the explorer process and also restarting windows, the stupid icon is still messed up 

[4wd]

I've had kind of this problem, the network, (LAN), icon sits there with the spinning donut saying it's still trying to get an IP from the DHCP server, (never mind that it's manually assigned   ).

It seems to revert to normal after a few system boots, (in the normal course of usage).

It's currently sitting there with an exclamation mark telling me the Unidentified Network, (VirtualBox), has no Internet access, (well duh...it's not running), yet other times it will look completely normal, (with VirtualBox not running).

I think it comes down to it just being borked....just like it's always been.

[nite_monkey]

I've had kind of this problem, the network, (LAN), icon sits there with the spinning donut saying it's still trying to get an IP from the DHCP server, (never mind that it's manually assigned  ).

It seems to revert to normal after a few system boots, (in the normal course of usage).

It's currently sitting there with an exclamation mark telling me the Unidentified Network, (VirtualBox), has no Internet access, (well duh...it's not running), yet other times it will look completely normal, (with VirtualBox not running).

I think it comes down to it just being borked....just like it's always been.

-4wd (October 08, 2011, 06:16 PM)

Thats windows for you. I guess Im just going to have to deal with it. I haven't installed enough garbage on my laptop yet to slow it down enough for me to need to reinstall windows yet, so I'll just have to live with it until then

[nite_monkey]

Good news everyone! I figured out the culprit! Virtualbox was causing the icon to mess up. I went on a rampage and started uninstalling anything that added a network interface (hamachi and and virtualbox were all I had) as soon as I uninstalled virtualbox (don't remember the exact version, 4.something) the icon changed to the spinning blue circle, and then showed my wifi signal strength! *Happy Face*   Kinda mad that virtualbox is the culprit tho, I really liked it. I guess it isn't to bad though, because I never really used it on my laptop, I used it more on my desktop. I'm just glad I got my icon working now.

[cranioscopical]

Well done!

It's amazing just how annoying we let the small things become.

 

[nite_monkey]

Well done!

It's amazing just how annoying we let the small things become.

 

-cranioscopical (October 08, 2011, 10:41 PM)

lol, I know I'm terrible when it comes to getting annoyed by small things

[kyrathaba]

I've had VirtualBox do the same thing to me.  However, in my case, a restart corrects the erroneous icon.