I have reloaded XP on my 6 year old Dell Inspiron 500m and it appears to have forgotton it has a built in wireless adaptor. The wireless network icon only shows in the 'my connections' display when I insert an external adaptor in the pcmia card slot. Any suggestions how I remind it it already has a wireless adaptor on board greatfully received!!!

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R78742&formatcnt=0&libid=0&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=103937



Level of Importance: Recommended Dell recommends applying this update during your next scheduled update cycle. The update contains feature enhancements or changes that will help keep your system software current and compatible with other system modules (firmware, BIOS, drivers and software).
Compatibility
Systems Operating systems
Inspiron 1100
Inspiron 500m
Inspiron 1150
Inspiron 300m
Inspiron 5100
Inspiron 5150
Inspiron 5160
Inspiron 9100
XPS/Inspiron XPS
Inspiron 8600
Inspiron 510m
Inspiron 600m
Latitude D500
Latitude 100L
Latitude X300
Latitude D400
Latitude D505
Latitude D600
Latitude D800
Dell Precision Mobile WorkStation M60
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows XP


Installation Instructions
Hard Drive Installation (via WinZip) with Setup.exe File for S5wua12i.exe

Download

1.Click Download Now, to download the file.
2.When the File Download window appears, click Save (Windows XP
users will click Save) this program to disk and click OK. The Save In:
window appears.
3.From the Save In: field, click the down arrow then click to
select Desktop and click Save. The file will download to your desktop.
4.If the Download Complete window appears, click Close. The file
icon appears on your desktop.

Install

1.Double-click the new icon on the desktop labeled S5wua12i.exe.
2.The Self-Extracting window appears and prompts you to extract or
unzip to C:\DELL\DRIVERS\r78742. Write down this path so the executable (I.e.
Setup.exe) file can be found later.
3.The Self-Extractor window appears.
4.Click OK.
5.After completing the file extraction, if the Self-Extractor
window is still open, close it.
6.Click the Start button and then click Run.
7.Type C:\DELL\DRIVERS\r78742 in the Open textbox and then click OK.
8.Follow the on-screen installation instructions.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R78742&formatcnt=0&libid=0&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=103937

go the the dell website . look for the support section
dowload all thedrivers for the dell iirion 850 windows xp
go to system . hardware ,device manager section and delete/uninstall wireless drivers. . rebooot the system and then reload the drivers

THE OPERATING SYSTEM IS CORRUPT TRY TO RELOAD THE SYSTEM BY INSERTING YOUR BOOTABLE CD XP AND REFORMATTED THE HARD DISK THEN RELOAD ALL AND FIND YOUR SYSTEM STABLE. OK

If your wireless router is configured with SSID, encryption, MAC address filtering (if enabled) etc. then the Dell wireless card needs to be configured with these settings to allow it to communicate with the wireless router.
Check the settings on your PC's wireless settings, and configure the Dell the same way.

if you have no sound, try reloading sound driver from dell support site, if that doesnt work,check device manager to see if there is a hardware problem

ah ok....just change the memory,if still the same change the hard drive....if it is still the same....during the setup of install xp!!! when blue screen just press f7...

Appears to be a dead/dying power adapter.

Require 2nd opinion on this one before making a decision though.

on your inspiron 2200...
1) click "start", "run", and type "services.msc"
2) select "wireless zero" at the bottom and check if it set to "automatic"
3) make sure that "wireless zero" is set to "start"
4) turn on inspiron 2200 wireless switch
5) right click wireless icon near to your computer's system time
6) click "view available wireless networks"
7) check if your wireless name is visible

Not sure I understand you what you mean. Let me recap:
1) Your LAN adaptor was working before you reloaded Windows XP Pro.
2) Now it’s not showing up in “Device Manager”.
If this is the case, there must be some software driver missing. Make sure there are no other devices that have an error. Double check Dell’s website at www.support.dell.com and select "I'm looking for drivers and downloads". If you don't have the proper version of Adobe you will be prompted to install it. Once installed return to "drivers and downloads" and enter the "service tag", (serial number) of the laptop. Dell keeps a listing of drivers for every customer's computer they sell.



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go to add hardware and reinstall them if that dont fix it your USB conections might be loose inside the laptop