I have an Acer Travelmate 290 with an Intel Centrino chip. According to my mate, my machine should be able to detect a wireless network without the need for a Wireless Cardbus Adapter (which I have and works fine on the Acer). Without the adapter, my machine detects nothing. Is this correct or do I have to do something to tell my machine to search for a network using the Centrino chip?

All centrino notebooks have wireless, since the centrino logo is only given to notebooks that have the 855 chipset, the pentiumM processor, and wireless networking inside.

However, most notebooks with wireless networking built-in also have the "antenna" disabled by default. In other words, when you turn the notebook on, the wireless portion needs to be activated manually in order for you to start using any wireless network (the hardware is working and windows detects it, it's just not active). Look in the manual, it's usually a switch or a key that needs the pressing of the "function" button.

All centrino notebooks have wireless, since the centrino logo is only given to notebooks that have the 855 chipset, the pentiumM processor, and wireless networking inside.

However, most notebooks with wireless networking built-in also have the "antenna" disabled by default.  In other words, when you turn the notebook on, the wireless portion needs to be activated manually in order for you to start using any wireless network (the hardware is working and windows detects it, it's just not active).  Look in the manual, it's usually a switch or a key that needs the pressing of the "function" button.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Firefoxx is right, usually, it's in the manual. Some acer laptops come with a "Wi-Fi" on-off switch at the side or keyboard hotkeys to toggle Wi-Fi.

My acer centrino starts with wi-fi on by default. Anyway if yours is like mine then the are 2 buttons on the front of the laptop in between the speakers. The one on the right is for turning Wi-Fi on and off. The one on the left is Bluetooth.

Good luck

All centrino notebooks have wireless, since the centrino logo is only given to notebooks that have the 855 chipset, the pentiumM processor, and wireless networking inside.

However, most notebooks with wireless networking built-in also have the "antenna" disabled by default.  In other words, when you turn the notebook on, the wireless portion needs to be activated manually in order for you to start using any wireless network (the hardware is working and windows detects it, it's just not active).  Look in the manual, it's usually a switch or a key that needs the pressing of the "function" button.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Firefoxx is right, usually, it's in the manual. Some acer laptops come with a "Wi-Fi" on-off switch at the side or keyboard hotkeys to toggle Wi-Fi.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There is a switch on the side of my laptop which turns on the antenna. This is turned to on but I still can't get the wireless function to work. The handbook doesn't help either.>

All centrino notebooks have wireless, since the centrino logo is only given to notebooks that have the 855 chipset, the pentiumM processor, and wireless networking inside.

However, most notebooks with wireless networking built-in also have the "antenna" disabled by default.  In other words, when you turn the notebook on, the wireless portion needs to be activated manually in order for you to start using any wireless network (the hardware is working and windows detects it, it's just not active).  Look in the manual, it's usually a switch or a key that needs the pressing of the "function" button.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I turned the switch on but it still doesn't work.

Does your ACER come with a pre-installed diagnostic networking program? I have a Toshiba M200, and if I use Wi-Fi, my LAN connection goes haywire, and if I use LAN, my Wi-Fi connection doesn't work as well.

It's possible that you need to update your drivers, checkout:

http://www.acersupport.com/notebook/html/tm290_dl.html

I have an Acer Travelmate 290 with an Intel Centrino chip. According to my mate, my machine should be able to detect a wireless network without the need for a Wireless Cardbus Adapter (which I have and works fine on the Acer). Without the adapter, my machine detects nothing. Is this correct or do I have to do something to tell my machine to search for a network using the Centrino chip?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I installed the driver from the Acer disk that came with the laptop and my machine now work fine. I just wonder why Acer didn't install the driver themselves.

And all the time we were thinking that you couldn't get it to "work", when in fact it wasn't installed. We all assumed that the driver was already installed.

These notebooks typically don't come with anything installed. The people who do install the software for you will be the guys at the notebook store. I'm not surprised that they skipped some things.