Disabling wifi for a flight

Whenever I switch my Acer aspire One 532 on it immediately searches for a wifi hot spot. So that if I am in say McDonalds or Pret a Manger it automatically connects to TheCloud.com, the default browser starts up, and I am presented with the login page. Obviously this shouldn't happen on a flight. So how do I switch the wifi off - without losing all of the wifi settings? This latter sometimes happens if I don't properly close down the wifi connection before closing the lid; then the wifi card seems to become completely disconnected, and later I have to go through the full locate and repair process to re-initiate it. Many thanks.

 

I am not familiar with that model of AAO but I did a quick search and according to Acer...
Press <Fn> + <F2> to turns the 3G/wireless LAN on/off, and toggles between 3G and wireless functions.

 

Many thanks. I found that info. eventually - but it related to other later models. My Acer Aspire One 532 is a little simpler - it doesn't have 3G to toggle on or off (whatever 3G is in terms of a netbook). It only has wifi. I'll see what happens next time I'm on wifi - usually I use a 3 dongle on mifi (confusing terms!!!).

 

To news:comp.risks (and other forums)

I have an Acer Aspire One 532 notebook. It has a wifi card that is permanently 'on,' by which I assume that it is continuously radiating EMF searching &/or communicating its presence to local wifi servers. Worryingly it does NOT have a slider switch to turn the wifi off.

I wish to use the netbook on some flights later this year. And so I searched for the documentation in the AcerSystem folder - but there was none there. Luckily the Acer web site had the Quick Start Guide in PDF format which I downloaded. But this didn't exactly describe how to turn the wifi off, i.e. to put it into 'flight mode.'

So I logged on and sent a message to Acer Support. I got this reply.

Quote "We would like to inform you, in order to turn off the wireless network connection, press and hold the FN key and then press the F2 key one's which will enable the wireless button, again press and hold the FN key and then press the F2 key until you see the red cross mark on the screen. Red cross mark states that the wireless network connection is off."

Well, FN and F2 certainly don't have icons with red crosses on, but there does seem to be four options with and without red circles with a diagonal bar across each. One of these with two red circles appears to indicate that wifi has indeed been switched off.

BUT THE HIGH RISK IS THAT THERE IS NO INDICATION OF ANY POSITIVE SWITCH-OFF OF THE WIFI TRANSMISSIONS. NO LED INDICATORS ARE USED. ITS ALL DONE WITH SOFTWARE - AND WE ALL KNOW [at comp.risks] HOW RELIABLE S/W IS.

ADDITIONALLY WHENEVER I SWITCH ON THE NETBOOK THE WIFI IS ALWAYS SET TO 'ON.' SO WHEN ON BOARD 6 MILES HIGH AND I START UP THE NETBOOK DO I RISK THE LIVES OF 450 SOULS TO SOME SOFTWARE 'SWITCH' WITH NO POSITIVE INDICATION THAT IT IS 'ON' OR 'OFF'?

Oh - and "no" Acer Support couldn't (wouldn't?) email me the General User Manual to get the documentation back into THE AcerSystem folder - to do this they said I had to carry out a full 'system restore' with the potential loss of gigabytes of my user-files. The mind boggles.

CJB

 

if your Fn+F2 (or usual WiFi switching method) aren't working, try this:

* Right click on the networking icon in your system tray
* Left click on Open Network And Sharing Center
* On the left, click on Change Adapter Settings
* Right Click on your wirless network connection
* Left click on Disable

Repeat the process to turn it back on, except instead of clicking Disable click Enable

 

Excellent - thank you - that's the info. I needed which Acer Customer Support couldn't (wouldn't?) tell me. Thank you again.

 

i have posted a bat file in the win7 folder which i use to solve a different problem with my a110l (now running win7 pro) anyways my wifi frequently would not work properly when resuming from s3 sleep mode, so I made a bat file to disable and then re-enable the wireless adapter. You could adapt it to two files (one wifi off the other wifi on...if you wanted to get super pro you could use something like hotkeyP to run them on keyboard hotkey presses



any way wifi_off.bat would look like this

Code:

echo on

netsh interface set interface "Wireless Network Connection" DISABLE


echo off

and wifi_on.bat would look like this

Code:

echo on

netsh interface set interface "Wireless Network Connection" ENABLE

echo off

when running these files (assuming the wifi connection name is correct as admin the wifi adapter would be enabled/disabled depending on the script run.

 

Thank you - I'll give these a try too.

I have now found a small red LED at the front that indicates whether wifi is 'on' or 'off'.

However my concern is that the wifi always seems to be 'on' if I open the lid and press the power-up button. That is even if I've switched the wifi 'off' beforehand and then closed the lid so that the netbook powers down (i.e. switches 'off' or goes into sleep / hibernate mode), when it wakes up the default seem to be wifi 'on'. So if I do this in the middle of a flight I am concerned that this might affect the flight systems before I get the chance to switch the wifi 'off' again.

Mind you there is a trend certainly in Europe to play games on smart phones and laptops on a flight - even during the landing sequence - jeeze -these damn games are so addictive even amongst adults who should know better - and as an ex-airline employee I have had occasion to call an attendant to point out that someone is still playing games on their phone. I always wonder whenever anyone is playing games or computing of a flight if they have put their laptop / smart phone into flight mode.