Earlier while working on a laptop that I rarely use because it is only required to access one of my clients networks the Wireless network interface stopped working. Initially I thought the Windows XP computer was in the process of crashing however I soon figured out that this was not the case. I started looking for the Wireless switch, which is typically used on modern laptops to turn the Wireless interface off and on, but I was unable to locate it initially. Below I describe how I eventually noticed that the Wireless switch had been disabled, where the WiFi switch is located, and how to turn the Wireless switch on a HP Pavillion 6555b back to the on position.
How To Tell If The Wireless Switch Is Disabled On A HP Pavillion 6555B:
The first example image below shows the entire keyboard on a HP Pavillion 6555B followed by an example image of the Wireless switch icon which is displaying orange.
Right above the F7 key on the HP 6555B laptop is where the Wireless switch icon is located. In fact it is also the actual Wireless switch itself and by touching the icon you can enable or disable the Wireless switch on the HP Pavillion 6555B laptop. If the icon is displaying an orange color that means that it is disabled and you can turn the Wireless network interface back on by simply touching the icon once and watching the Wireless switch icon turn blue as shown in the below example images.
HP Pavillion 6555B Touch Wireless Icon To Turn On Wireless Interface:
As noted previously if the icon is blue that means the Wireless interface is on and should be operational. When the Wireless interface is enabled or disabled you will likely see HP Wireless Assistant messages stating that the WLAN is disabled or the WLAN is enabled as shown in the below example images.
HP Pavillion 6555B – HP Wireless Assistant – WLAN: Disabled
HP Pavillion 6555B – HP Wireless Assistant – WLAN: On
As easy as it is to enable or disable the Wireless network interface on the HP Pavillion laptop it took me awhile to figure out that the icon itself was actually the Wireless switch so I figured it was worth posting if this helps even one person save some time.