Lenovo laptops are not particularly capricious when it comes to wireless connections, but sometimes it takes a lot of work to get Wi-Fi on on a Lenovo laptop. Especially if it is not a very new laptop model and is running Windows 7, or Windows 8 (or even XP). In Windows 10, everything is somehow simpler. Although, on my laptop, after installing Windows 10, I could not turn on Wi-Fi in any way. I wrote about this in one of the articles on the site. But the problem was resolved pretty quickly. I will also write about this in the article.
Of course, depending on the laptop model, the installed operating system and different settings, the reasons may be different. But as personal experience shows and information that is often shared with me in the comments, most often it is not possible to connect a Lenovo laptop to Wi-Fi due to the fact that it is disabled by a switch on the laptop case, or a keyboard shortcut. Therefore, we will consider these two methods first. And of course, very often the wireless module driver is simply not installed on a laptop.
Let's go in order:
1If you have a wireless network icon with an asterisk in the tray, it means that everything is fine. Click on it, select the desired network and connect.
And in the device manager, on the "Network adapters" tab, you will not see a wireless adapter (Wireless, WLAN).
In this case, you need to download and install the correct driver. I already wrote about this in a separate article: Wi-Fi on a Lenovo laptop: how to download a driver and utility.
3Well, the third option, which this article is devoted to, is when there is a Wi-Fi adapter, everything seems to work, but the Wi-Fi icon with a red cross and the status "No connection - No available connections", or "Wireless network - Disabled".
In my case, on Windows 10, the Wi-Fi button was just grayed out. And the wireless switch in the parameters did not work. I wrote about this in the article Wireless Network - Disabled in Windows 10. There I just ran into this problem on a Lenovo laptop.
If you have the same case, you cannot turn on the wireless network on your laptop, then see and apply the solutions from this article.
Mechanical Wi-Fi Switch
Many Lenovo laptop models have a separate switch to disable and enable the wireless connection. You need to check if there is such a switch on your laptop. Maybe you or someone else accidentally turned it off. Therefore, the wireless connection is disabled.
It is most often found on the front of the laptop. There may be an assembly, or somewhere near the keyboard. There should be a wireless icon next to the switch.
If your laptop has such a switch, make sure it is in the On position. If everything is on there, then turn it off and on again.
You can also reboot your laptop. If the laptop does not see the wireless networks immediately after using the dedicated switch.
Fn key combination on Lenovo laptop to turn on Wi-Fi
On newer models on which the manufacturer recommends installing Windows 10, the keyboard shortcutFn + F7 (with airplane icon) turns on and off the airplane mode. But it is possible that using this keyboard shortcut in some cases, you can also turn on Wi-Fi.
The keyboard shortcut is also common Fn + F5 (with wireless icon).
Basically on Lenovo laptops, the key combination is Fn + F7, or Fn + F5. I have not met others.
Press these keys together once and look at the result. If nothing happened, then click on them and restart the laptop.
Why are the function keys not working?
It happens that the wireless connection on a Lenovo laptop is really disabled using the function keys. Windows (after running the diagnostics) tells us to use the keys or switch to enable.
But there is no separate switch, and the function keys do not function due to the lack of a driver or utility that is responsible for the operation of these function keys. Including Fn + F7 and Fn + F5.
And this means that we need to download and install the utility from the Lenovo website, specifically for our laptop and the system installed on it. Most likely this is the Hotkey Features Integration utility, which can be downloaded from this link:https://support.lenovo.com/ua/ru/downloads/ds014985... This is for Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows XP.
And if you have Windows 10, then most likely you need the Lenovo Utility for Windows 10. You can download it on the page of a specific laptop model.
After installing the utility, restart your laptop and try using the function keys.
Programmatic method (in Windows settings)
Try using Windows Mobility Center. Press the Win + X keyboard shortcut to invoke it.
Perhaps there will be a button "Enable Wireless".
If it is present and active, then after clicking Wi-Fi should work.
In Windows 10, you can open this window through the search.
But on my Windows 10 laptop, there is no wireless control in this window. Therefore, go to the settings, in the "Network and Internet" section and on the Wi-Fi tab, try to turn it on.
I think these tips are enough. If you know other ways that you can turn on Wi-Fi on a Lenovo laptop, write in the comments.
I recommend another article: Wi-Fi does not work on a laptop. What to do?
If nothing from the article helps, then check the function keys again. Especially if you have Windows 8 and below. Download and install the Hotkey Features Integration utility, which I wrote about above.
