[NA]Laptop assistance[NA]

[Let'sgoflying!]

I am 'helping' a friend with a laptop. It's an older, used one that he wants to start using for internet; the usual stuff at the house.
Presario 2100 M345MY. Windows XP Home
The hardrive has been wiped and fresh install of everything.
I put in SP3 and its all updated

It will connect to the internet via the RJ45 but we want to use it wirelessly.
How do I tell if this computer has an internal wireless card and how do I get it working.
Under System>Hardware>Device Mgr>Network Adapters it has "National Semiconductor Corp DP83815/816 MacPhyter PCI Adapter", is that a wireless card?

 

[TMetzinger]

Don't think so. If it had wireless built in there should be both an indicator light and a function key or button to enable/disable it.

 

[John221us]

That model indicates it came with wireless, but I don't know if it was an option or standard. Go to the HP web site and download the latest driver set for that laptop. Look in device manager and see if there are any unknown devices (you can tell it to redetect, after you download the driver set). The network adapter driver you are seeing is the wired adapter that is working. It looks like the wireless adapter is either not there, broken or the OS couldn't detect the right driver (which is why I said to download and install the latest driver set and then tell it to redetect unknown devices).

If this doesn't work, I wouldn't spend anymore time fighting it, just buy a USB wireless adapter.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

I am done with it - I could not get that one nor two external wireless notebook adapters to work. (including one that is plug and play and in regular use elsewhere)
It also won't let me uninstall two wireless programs that we ended up getting on there.