Unable to connect to wireless

[maddness]

I am unable to connect to any wireless networks it says that my wireless is off but the wireless switch is on and I don't seem to have a function key to turn it on. I am using a HP Pavilion, Special Edition it is about 3 or 4 years old. I was able to connect until I upgraded to 11.10. I was told to edit a conf file something about a blacklist file. I was hoping to know if I could get back on track and get this fixed, and how I would go about this?

[TBABill]

Can you open a terminal and type in

lspci -vv

Paste the output here and we can help from there.

[maddness]

I will do that when I am able to get to the computer in question, I'll get back with the post..