Hi abysmommy and welcome to our forums.
Sorry to hear of the problems with your wi fi. There could be a quite a few "suspects" that need checking out, so some work is likely to be required.
Its possible that dropping the laptop caused latent damage especially to the wifi network card, (not the Verizon air card) but the internal wifi network card that was likely installed at the factory by Gateway.
Before we go to far in asking you to run diagnostic tools, please have a look at the following suggestions.
1 Make sure that any wifi switch on the laptop's case is set to on…( yes I know.. but stranger things have happened in repair workshops!
2 If there is a "soft" switch on your laptop to switch on wifi, then be sure to activate it (often its a function key for example F2, but you will need to check your handbook for precise details.
3 Check in Device Manager, is your internal wifi network adapter card listed and shown to be working Ok? (right click it etc) are there any yellow or red markers showing for the wi fi network card?
4 Whilst performing the checks shown in 3 above please note down the exact details in full of the wifi network card and post it here in your reply.
5 Are you seeing the name (SSID) of your wireless access point (router) when clicking on your network connections?
6 If you take the laptop to a chum's house, can your machine "see" their wifi (SSID) and does it connect to it if given the correct password.
7 In "network connections" (look in Control Panel) is your on board wifi connected and shown as enabled?
8 Try restarting your modem router wireless access point, after leaving them off for 5 minutes ( check with other users first that they are not in the middle of important work!) then restart your laptop, any joy?
9 Can other laptops connect to the wifi signal from your router wireless access point?
10 finally after all this and with your wifi enabled both on laptop ( via network connections through Control Panel) and router/wireless access point, BUT with ethernet cable and Verizion Air card disconnected…( unplugged) please open a command prompt ( for Vista, 7, or 8/8.1, right click and select run as administrator) and copy and paste and then run the following command
cmd /c "ipconfig /all > postme.txt & ping bbc.co.uk >> postme.txt & notepad postme.txt & del postme.txt"
Note please use "copy and paste" (Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v) for this command, as it will automatically make sure you get the spaces correct!
A notepad window will open with the output I need so I can see what's going on inside your laptop.
Please copy and paste the output from the notepad into your reply with the make /model numbers of your Gateway laptop and your router wireless access point and the details of the operating system you are using etc:
Regards
paws
