Okay I have a toshiba laptop that has wireless and I was able to get a connection without any issues and know I can see that its sending a singal but not recieveing any. Not sure if it maleware or anything. Suggestions? I cleaned the machine by formatting and such so it shouldnt have anything really wrong not sure.....Not a lot of input to work on there... Firewall? What OS did you reinstall, not all viruses are gone just from a re-format, you might want to flash the BIOS.. The more input you give me, the more I can try to help you figure out WHATS up with it! I know, there unsecure, I'm USEING the windows one. Xp home edition, no bios FLASHING. If it works I'm not going to do that, I can see others and connect to them most of the time but its just this one and thats all I can connect too. Could be a wifi driver problem, check the manufacturers specs and the latest driver installed!running that now but i dont think that it since I can see others and can connect.How long have you had the laptop? Just wondering if maybe it's one of those laptops with a wireless connect button hidden away somewhere and the years of use have eroded the words WiFi off the button. no it hasnt. it is about four years old but there is a front switch to turn it on and off and SUCHI got the windows updates which may help not sure will have to try latter.i was able to get on for a while but still have issues. No it has the SYMBOL and says on and off which seem not to have faded.