There are a number of reasons as to why although your network adapter is connected to your laptop or notebook but on screen it is showing that it appears to be disconnected. In a large number of cases such a wireless network adapter can easily be resolved and generally with a few clicks of the mouse button you can be back online in a matter of minutes.

Below we take you through the steps that you will need to follow if you have a problem with the connection to your wireless adapter if you are running either Windows XP or Vista or your laptop or notebook or even on your PC.

Firstly we will take a look at the steps you need to carry out if you discover a problem with your wireless connection and you have Windows XP.

Step 1 – First you need to click on start and then click on the control panel icon.

Step 2 – Now you need to double click on the icon that is entitled network connections and then right click on the icon called wireless network connection. When you get into this field you now need to click on the button called properties.

Step 3 – In the properties section you now need to click on the wireless network tab and then click on available networks.

Step 4 – Once you have access to the available networks you now need to click on the wireless network button and then the configure one.

Step 4 – An authentication tab will now appear on the screen in front of you and you need to click on this to enable authentication to take place and check to see if the network check box has been selected. If not then you need to click on this twice.

As for Windows Vista in order to rectify any kind of network adapter problem you need to follow step 1 and then these next few steps.

Step 1 – The same as for Windows XP.

Step 2 – In the control panel section of the screen you now need to click on the Network and Internet icon and then click on the network and sharing center one.

Step 3 – Then a further icon will appear in front of you called manage network connections and you need to click on this.

Step 4 – Now you should right click the network which will then disable 802.1X authentication for. Once this has been done you then need to click on the button called properties. Then click on the security tab and then go to security type list and then click on the no authentication tab/button.

Hopefully using the above steps will then help to resolve the wireless network adapter problem that you may have. But the first thing that you should do prior to actually carrying out the steps mentioned above is to check to ensure that your adapter is actually connected properly to your laptop or notebook. Sometimes even if the external wireless network adapter has become slightly disconnected from your laptop can cause a problem with the signal and connection that you receive.