MacBook Problem - "No AirPort Card Installed"

[Don Quixote]

Last night I was using my wife's MacBook, as I often do, and was watching some TV at the same time. In the meantime, the computer went to sleep, which generally is no big deal. When I went to try to use it again, it did not want to wake up when I was doing the usual wake-up maneuvers such as hitting a key or clicking the pad. It also did not respond to clicking the power button. I then held the power button down briefly, clicked the power button again, and the computer came back on.

When the computer booted, I noticed there was no incoming/outgoing connection/data status, and the AirPort icon was "empty" (instead of the usual arcs, it looked like the outline of a piece of pie). I tried to open Firefox to see if that would kick things back into shape. I got the restore tabs/session prompt, and when I restored the tab I wanted, there was still no connection. I clicked on the AirPort icon and it said "No AirPort card installed." I tried rebooting and hard shut downs both with and without the power cord attached, to no avail.

I'm not very familiar with Macs, so I don't want to try something and screw it up. This is the first issue we've had that has had an immediate impact on usual operations. During the last couple of months, the rubber bottom has started coming off; we haven't yet had the time or money to get that fixed, and I've seen that like the AirPort issue I've described, that's happened to many folks as well. I know we will have to take this computer to an Apple Store to get the bottom fixed, but I'd like to avoid that when it comes to the AirPort issue. I have no idea if the computer has AppleCare or anything like that, as it was a Christmas gift to my wife from her uncle. We simply don't know.

A bit about the computer:

Late 2009 13" MacBook (not Pro), white plastic
Mac OS X 10.6.1 (Snow Leopard)
internal battery
Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz
Memory - 2 GB 1067MHz DDR3

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light.

[OrangeJerseys]

While on hold the power button down for ten seconds. This does a kind of cold reboot of everything.

Of that doesn't work use Mroogle to find your answer on MacRumors. It's like the OH of the Mac world.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[McNulty]

Try resetting the SMC.

[Don Quixote]

Unfortunately, that did nada.

[McNulty]

Try resetting the PRAM. Outside of that, take it in to a shop.

[JDubs]

Get a PC.

[Don Quixote]

McNulty, I wasn't sure whether to reset the PRAM, since supposedly that doesn't deal with network issues. However, I don't know whether this would be considered a network issue. The network itself is fine, so I guess it would be a software/hardware thing. I may go ahead and reset the PRAM just to see what happens.

Luckily, I had a spare Ethernet wire, so the Mac gets online fine when it's tethered (my router will take four wired computers and we only have two, so good times for us). This morning I connected to Software Update and installed some updates including a new AirPort Utility I need to check out, but I doubt that will do anything. If there's no resolution from that or a PRAM reset, I guess I'll be headed to the Richmond Apple Store (the bottom pad also needs replacing anyway).

JDubs, I'm typing this on a Dell desktop I got in late 2004.

[Don Quixote]

For awhile, the OS update (I'm running 10.6.8 now) did bupkis, but one day I got a pop up for the AirPort Base Station Agent to connect to something. Eventually, the wireless was restored, and that's been almost a week or so. Of course, after the wireless came back (though not immediately), the display became bisected by a line of sorts, which seems to be mostly gray but has some green in it at spots, mainly toward the edges. It's as if a small fragment of a page or application background won't leave the screen. It overlays any page or application at all times. Odd....