This laptop stopped being able to connect to the internet wirelessly without a USB dongle a ''while'' back; it's been years since it worked. It connects to ethernet just fine. I recently inherited it and slapped Linux Mint on there, whereupon the wireless ''did'' work, for about an hour, before conking out again. Though I haven't been able to get it to connect to wireless since then, this is consistent with how it started acting when the wireless first gave out, before the laptop's former owner gave up and got a USB adapter, when this device was still a Windows 7 (maybe 8?) machine. The fact that it occurs across OSes, and isn't entirely, consistently dead, led me to believe that perhaps the wireless adapter itself had gone bad (as opposed to there being a driver issue). However, replacing it with a known working adapter did not fix the problem. Now I'm wondering if the antenna is broken (maybe a break in the wire?). Does this seem plausible? If so, is it feasible to replace the antenna, and is someone willing to write up a guide about it? Or should I just give up and get another USB adapter?