Windows – Can’t turn on Intel 5300 Wifi on Lenovo T530

thinkpadwindows 8wireless-networking

I have an Intel 5300 Wireless Card in my new Lenovo ThinkPad T530. Sometimes, when I use the Wireless switch on the side of the computer, when I turn it back on the computer still says that the Wifi is off.

When I run the Intel Diagnostic, it tells me: Software Radio is OFF and gives the following troubleshooting information:

Verify that your WiFi adapter's radio is on. Use the following methods
to turn the radio on and off:

  • The hardware switch.
  • The WiFi On/WiFi Off button in the WiFi connection utility main window. See Turn On or Off the Wireless Radio for more information.

So far, the only way I have discovered to resolve the issue is to go into Device Manager and uninstall the card, then Scan for Hardware Changes. However, this loses the passwords of all of the saved Wireless networks, something I'd like to avoid.

I am using the (currently most recent) driver version 15.5.6 on Windows 8 (64-bit).

Best Answer

After playing with it for a few more minutes, I finally figured it out. It appears to be a bug in Windows, where flipping the switch on the computer turns on/off Airplane Mode, but when Airplane Mode turns off, it doesn't flip the Wireless back on.

I found two ways to fix it:

  1. Run the Network Troubleshooter, by right-clicking the Network icon and choosing Troubleshoot Problems. It finds that the problem is that the Wireless is Off and offers to turn it back on.
  2. Open the Change PC Settings "Windows-8-Style-formerly-Metro-Style" app from the charms bar, go to Wireless, and flip the toggle switch:

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Neither of these is really a good solution, considering that the problem shouldn't be happening in the first place, but it's better than what I had to do before.

UPDATE (August 2013): While the problem still has not completely gone away, I have noticed that one of the most likely ways to trigger this behavior is flipping the wireless switch while the computer is booting up or resuming from sleep or hibernate. I often use a network cable when at my desk and I used to plug in or unplug the cable and flip the switch immediately when I put the computer down on the desk. Waiting for a minute or two for the machine to resume from sleep has reduced the frequency of the issue.

UPDATE (March 2014): I updated the computer to Windows 8.1 and the issue seems to have gone away.

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