Running Windows XP SP 2 on a laptop, with built-in wireless networking card.
I’ve run scans for viruses and spyware with all the latest signatures. I even checked for rootkits, paranoid that I am.
What happens is that seemingly randomly, I get disconnected from my wireless router.
I tried a different physical router, and got the same problem, so it must be on the client side.
Here are the symptoms:
Applications that use the Internet start reporting “unable to connect” type errors (browser, email, IM etc.)
The tray icon shows “connected” with “excellent” signal strength. The signal strength is never worse than “good”.
However, if I go to a command prompt and do an “ipconfig”, it just says “media disconnected”. Apparently ipconfig knows something that the tray icon does not.
If I go to “view wireless networks”, it says “no wireless networks were found in range.”
However, I know it’s lying because every single time, if I select “repair” in the right-click menu, it fixes everything. It usually craps out on “obtaining IP address”, saying it can’t, but the connection is still OK by then. If I then revisit ‘view wireless networks’ I see my network and those of my neighbors.
Windows almost never repairs the connection without my intervention. On those rare occasions when it does, the tray icon gets stuck at “obtaining IP address”, even though the connection is OK. However, when Windows repairs the connection, it only lasts for a few seconds then the tray icon changes to red-X and I lose connectivity. If I then manually “repair” the connection, everything is OK.
Potentially relevant: I’m using 128-bit WEP, MAC address filtering and have SSID broadcasting turned off. This doesn’t seem to be related to any particular wireless channel. I have it set for 802.11g which my laptop supports. The wireless router is set up for DHCP. The problem is between my laptop and the wireless router - and probably something in Windows on my laptop - nothing to do with the cable modem or anything thereafter.
Does anyone have any idea at all what might be going on?
No answers here but the same thing happens to me. I am using a PCMCIA wireless card and every now and then I have to reseat it because that is the only way to get the connection back.
Darn, you had me all excited. That sounded very plausible.
Sadly, I looked in both the “Power” applet in control panel (it’s set to “always on”, nothing ever goes to power save) and the properties of the network card in Device Manager; although the latter has a couple of promising properties (“power save mode” and “minimum power consumption”) they are both set to “disabled”.
This is most annoying, especially when it drops the connection during the night when I’ve left it to…do stuff the mods wouldn’t appreciate me discussing.
Are you running Norton Internet Security? I’ve seen it bust lots of networks, wireless or otherwise. Remove it, and the problem is solved. Norton sucks.
Are you losing your connection while you’re actively using it, or is it gone after a period of inactivity?
I’ve noticed that when I have torrents running on a machine on my network (educational torrents you know like uh…er…legal stuff) and turn on my laptop, my laptop can’t get an IP address. If I pause the torrents and then repair, all is well until I shut down the laptop and turn it back on. Dunno why it does this or how to keep it from happening but that is the fix (pause torrents on computer A - repair connection on computer B).
Another thing about wireless with Windows I have noticed is that it’s easier to let Windows run your wireless connection instead of the software that came with the network card. XP SP2 can do this. Just unilstall your wireless network software and then go to Start - Control Panel - Wireless Network Wizard or whatever. So if you are using 3rd party software try this to see what happens.
Oh BTW once I get a connection on my laptop, I can re-start the torrents with no ill effects to my laptop connection. It’s just acquiring the IP that doesn’t work when torrents are active.
Norton can be fixed…5 minutes in the microwave on low…
I have fixed about 7 computers by removing norton internet security in the last 3 months, and had one customer who thought I must be insane because it has to be a good program or it wouldn’t cost $70
:smack:
Makes me want to keep a stack of disks with the full versions of AVG, Ewido, and Zone Alarm and tell them the “Drach’s Security Suite 2006, No Carb Edition, now with Monster Cables” is only $100 while supplies last.
Fear Itself - ick. I’d never touch the thing. I use Ad-Aware & SpyBot for spyware, and Avast (on demand) for AV. I use RootkitRevealer (on demand) for rootkits.
astro - those are good ideas; I’ll go through them one by one:
I’ll try a test tomorrow with all encryption turned off; I don’t want to do it now since it will upset other wireless devices in the house.
I don’t see this exact setting, but as I mentioned above both the settings related to power saving are “disabled”.
Yes, it’s enabled and set to automatic start-up. One thing I’ve heard is that this service can sometimes itself cause disconnections; I tried once letting it connect, then stopping and disabling it to see if it was the problem. It wasn’t.
Have tried this many times.
I don’t see any network bridges - just the icon for my wireless NIC.
The problem occurs with two different routers that I have.
It’s a regular install of Windows XP.
I’m pretty sure that a direct connection would work, but I might try it some time just for kicks. This really seems like a wireless problem.
ZipperJJ - it seems to happen whether I’m actively using the connection or not. I am using the native Windows wireless networking, rather than the one supplied by the network card manufacturer.
Ooh! Ooh! Major clue! It just occurred to me to check the System event log. I see a Brazillion messages like this:
*The system detected that network adapter Broadcom…802.11g - Packet Scheduler Miniport was connected to the network, and has initiated normal operation over the network adapter.
*
every couple of minutes, with the occasional one like this thrown in:
The system detected that network adapter Broadcom…802.11g - Packet Scheduler Miniport was disconnected from the network, and the adapter’s network configuration has been released. If the network adapter was not disconnected, this may indicate that it has malfunctioned. Please contact your vendor for updated drivers.
I’ve tried it on all the available channels, and still get dropped.
After seeing those messages in the Event Log, I got the latest drivers and installed them. I notice that I’d somehow picked up a Microsoft driver for the network card; probably foisted upon me by Windows Update. One careless click, and there it was…
I second that. My wireless connection goes down anytime anyone uses the cordless phone. I relocated the router and the cordless phone and it didn’t help much.
I’m about ready to run a cable and be done with it.
The problem with the 2.4 GHz band is that the chanhels are not discrete and overlap a good bit. You have to have about 4-5 channels of seperation between networks that are co-located to avod interference. I don’t know how the cordles phone channels are alocated, and when it comes to microwave ovens, all bets are off.
Well, I’ve been running with the newer Broadcom drivers for half a day now, and so far so good. My “protein folding” has gone safely uninterrupted.
I’m pretty sure it’s not interference from anything in my house. I’ve tried every channel on the router; right now I’m home alone so it’s not the microwave or cordless phones. Of course, it could still be my neighbors but the fact that it’s channel-independent suggests a software problem.
Speaking of wireless hell, I’m having a problem which stumps all the power users I know. Periodically, no rhyme or reason to it that I can see, Explorer will suddenly lose its mind and start running some sort of loop that consumes all available resources. I’ll click into Task Manager and IE will be using 98%. If I click End Process, it closes, then immediately reopens, still using 98%. If I shut down, Windows only gets as far as “Windows is shutting down” then stalls. Only way to complete the shutdown is to unplug. Interestingly, if I put the system into Standby, it’ll come out without IE being caught in that loop. But it usually regresses quickly. So I standby, shutdown and reboot. Any ideas?
FYI, running XP Home SP2 on an HP laptop. Don’t have this problem if using a hard-wired (e.g., USB) connection. Network adaptor is a Realtek RTL8139 (Ethernet 802.3 type). And when I say no rhyme or reason, I mean it can happen several times in one day, then go weeks without. Once a week is typical. Also, doesn’t seem to be related to how many applications I have open. For that matter, it’s rare for me to be using more than 2% of availalbe resources.