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Strange behavior of RTL8187L on Windows

Last response: in Wireless Networking
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Hi

I have Msi Wind u100 netbook. I just bought rtl8187L chipset internal wifi card. My problem is i cant make it activated through Fn+F11 combo.
This is what i observed.,
1. I cant activate it (Fn+F11 combo) in both linux and windows xp. I can use it normally (connect to internet) on linux. I checked and there is no soft or hard block on it.
2. On windows, i downloaded its driver from official realtek site, i tried both beta and stable version (there are only 2 version). In both cases, it is installed successfully, it searches for APs but none is found. It is because i cant make it activate through key combo, i suppose.
3. On windows, in device manager, windows sees this card as usb wifi somehow. I think that's why it cant be activated. There is no extra configuration settings in bios for this issue

My question is this, how can i use this card in windows, there is no hardware block on it, in device manager it is not disabled, it can search for APs but i cant make the wifi led on due to some reason, but it works perfectly fine under linux. Is there a workaround?

If the OS sees the card, installs the drivers, and even attempts to scan for wifi networks, it's working/activated. Some internal cards also install as USB devices, that's not uncommon, and doesn’t affect its usage.

So everything you've described so far tells me it's working. I can't tell you why it's not finding wifi signals, but I do know it's working.

I can recall that while using my previous wifi card (internal rtl8187se), when i forget to turn the wifi led on (using that key combo), it showed the same behavior. It could scan for APs, everything seemed normal but no AP was found.

I am thinking that maybe there is a manual way to connect to APs (on windows xp), maybe using command window or using some software other than windows zero config? If i try windows 7, would it be the same problem? Any suggestions?
Related ressources

Yes i tried that. I should also add that in that utility, it shows "Radio HW Off" is ticked and greyed out, i couldnt untick it. So i assume that is the problem. I also tried repair function, restart etc. things that i could think of
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