gateway laptop supposed to have built in wireless

[shashgo]

Its a gateway series M1617 laptop running win Vista (32 bit).  This laptop is supposed to have built in wireless capability (its got the wireless on off switch on the side).  However I cant connect to the internet wirelessly.  When I go to the device manager, I dont see any entry that says wireless adapter, should I see something like that?

Also I have two entries, one is for ethernet controller, which says "No drivers installed'.  I click on update driver and choose search the internet, but it just stays searching and looks like its unable to find the driver

The other entry is std vga adapter.  This one says drivers are installed, but says device cannot start.  What does that mean?

[iamtonsoffun247]

First, make sure the wireless switch is tured on on the side( duh lol)
Secondly, in the  bottom right of the computer you should see in the taskbar an icon that looks like 2 little computers, probably with a red "x" on it. CLick it once and click "conncet to network". Do any wireless networks show up?

[shashgo]

I got it working.  All I needed was to let the computer search online for the drivers for ethernet controller.  I had no idea that ethernet controller would also include the wireless driver.  There was no other entry in device manager that said wireless adapter. 

So I am still at a loss to understand how the driver installation enabled the wireless even though there is no wireless card listed as hardware in device manager.  It cant all be software, there has to be hardware right?

[patio]

Onboard wireless setups normally reside all on one chip...therefore installing the Ethernet drivers enabled both wireless and wired connections...