Originally Posted by 417junkhorn

It sounds like I have the same problem with my Dell D610, which I've had without problems for a couple years.

A couple of weeks ago, while doing normal Internet browsing, the laptop totally froze. Couldn't move the mouse, couldn't Ctrl-alt-del, or anything.

So when I turned it off with the power button and rebooted, the Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG wasn't showing up in the Device Manager.

I played around with it for a while and eventually got the device to show up, the wireless internet was working. But after probably 15 minutes, the computer froze again.

I tried uninstalling the device and drivers, updating the drivers, etc. But now if I reboot and the system automatically starts to install the drivers, it will freeze during installation, or if I enable the device it instantly freezes. Then, upon reboot, it will freeze early on in startup and I have to disable the device in Safe Mode to be able to reboot properly.


Is there any way I can find out for sure if the card is busted (I took it out of the computer, but I can't really tell if anything is visibly wrong with it) and I need a new one, or if I need to reformat? The computer performs without any problems as long as the wireless card is disabled or removed.