Well, nephew with a new Dell laptop sent me his older Dell laptop to
"clean up, update, and send to another relative" in his senior year of
high school in Flor-ida.

Said used laptop, about a year old, and pretty nice, seemed to have lost
its wireless ability. An hour or two futzing around with it indicated to
me that it wasn't a software or VISTA problem, though I am no expert on
wireless matters. An external wireless card, though, worked.

Hmmmm.

So I opened up a panel on the back of the laptop and voila, discovered
that one of two wires coming out of the innards had detached itself from
the wireless card and...worse...the itty bitty connector that held the
wire onto the card was...missing. The other connector was one I had
never seen before and I just knew it wasn't a radio shack item.

So I called Dell and after an hour of wading through automated
responses, transfers, and several semi-English speakers somewhere in the
known universe (maybe), I was connected to a woman who seemed to
understand the problem. She said I would be contacted by a service company.

Sure enough, a tech called the other day and made an appointment to come
out here. He had a number of parts with him, including a new motherboard
(not necessary), and a new "back" to the computer case, which was
necessary, because built into the the back was a set of wires, the
antenna for the wireless card, and the loose ends had the right
connectors on them. These roadie techs don't solder...so he replaced the
back. And he found the missing connector.

Very competent guy, too. Taking these laptops completely apart is not
something I would do.

All is well with the laptop, and it'll be on its way to Flor-ida next
week. Damned nice laptop.