WiFi problem, please help, sort of urgent :-)

[Arterion]

Hi all,

I'm having a problem with my other half's laptop- its a Sony Vaio which is using a built-in Intel wireless adapter which has the latest driver from MS update. Connection via this adapter to my home network and access to the internet has been fine, but she's literally just moved into a new house and we appear to have the following problem; we can connect to the network (it's using a belkin wireless router), but it only seems to be able to open internet pages for no more than a minute after doing so- after that, all connections either time out or I get a simple 'cannot display the webpage' in FF or IE. I need to disconnect, then reconnect for another 50-60 seconds of functioning, then it cuts out again. Rinse and repeat.

I've set firefox to auto-detect proxy settings to no avail. I'm using XP's Wireless Zero config to get this going. The network is using WPA2 protection and the key was something silly like 'sonysonysony', this seems more like a password than a network key but XP seems to accept it and gives me that 60-seconds or so window of actually working.

I'm going out of my mind with this, I cannot find anything wrong settings-wise, but clearly something IS wrong, I'm guessing the router has a problem with the laptop and/or vice versa because my iPhone connected fine and was completely stable. I don't have access to the router itself for the moment, so woudl appreciate laptop-side suggestions if you have them!!

Anyone have any input?

 

[jeff4952]

if you're using wireless zero config i'll assume it says the connection is connected and functioning fine in the control panel? assuming thats the case, what ip address are you pulling

start -> run cmd

type in ipconfig

it will tell you

ip

subnet and default gateway

 

[Arterion]

IP Address = 192.168.2.5

Subnet Mask = 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway = 192.168.2.1

The problem also seems to prevent me accessing the router using 192.168.2.1 in Firefox/IE.

 

[jeff4952]

ok, go back to network connections, right click on the wireless connection and goto properties. go down to interet protocol (tcp/ip) click it then select properties. make sure its set to "obtain ip address automatically" and "obtain dns server address automatically.

if it was set to obtain automatically already

goto start -> run -> cmd

type in

ping 192.168.2.1

if you get replys back try typing

ping 209.131.36.159

if you get replys from that try typing

ping yahoo.com

 

[Arterion]

Ill take a look in the morning, it's at my other half's house and she's in bed now, I'll get back to you, thanks!!

 

[Arterion]

Over a week on and I'm still stuggling with this problem. One thing I have noticed is that in the few moments it works a WAN connection appears in the network connections, and then eventually disappears when it stops working. What does this mean? Could it have something to do with my problem?

 

[Youngie1337]

Have you tried resetting the router to default/factory settings and installing network drivers again?

 

[Arterion]

Can't, it's the house's network and it's working

fine for everyone else...

 

[Youngie1337]

Can't, it's the house's network and it's working

fine for everyone else...

How about reinstalling drivers?

 

[Arterion]

Yep, I'm way beyond basic stuff like that, gotta be a settings issue of some kind...

 

[Youngie1337]

Try this

Download this:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...17-B3D3-42CF-A434-87AD81259FC6&displaylang=en

Right click on Wireless Network Connection, and then click “Configure”.

If asked for permission to open Network Connections, click on Allow.

Highlight the following items and press the “Uninstall” button:

Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver

Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder

or

Go to device manager, right click on your network card and turn off the POWER SAVING MODE.

 

[Rastalovich]

Youngie, she has 2 eyes !

Usually the simple answer to this problem is to change the channel the access point it using. Most use 6 or 11, and as u can imagine if every1 is in there, it gets noisy. Change it to something else, 1 usually works well for me.

If u do a wireless search and see loads of access points, chances are they're all using the same channel.

 

[jeff4952]

what type of encryption is the network using?

Most likely a bad nic or its possible that its unhappy with the type of encrpytion benig used fors ome reason

 

[siravarice]

Running Vista I assume?

 

[kendo]

If you can’t access 192.168.2.1 via wireless, use a cable to check the settings? The default password is blank/empty.

Does your Belkin have a guest account that’s enabled and being picked up instead of the main SSID?

The SSID and password are often similar and the access is usually via a hotel style landing page, which gives the appearance of the browser working initially. This is likely to be the issue if the main SSID is set to be hidden. You'd be using the main SSID password on the guest account.

Other things to check:

Try setting upnp to on and then off. Strangely with my Belkin this can be critical and once connected you can then turn it back on.

Check the IP address being assigned to the Vaio isn’t on the denied mac address list (unlikely)

Clear the laptop’s preferred wireless networks and then search for networks again (to clear password associations)

My Belkin seems to prefer WPA / TKIP rather than WPA2 / AES and check the protected mode setting in the channel settings page

I’ve also noticed wireless issues if the PC that set up the network has workgroup set to ‘WORKGROUP’ as Windows usually sets this to ‘MSHOME’. Set the workgroup name (of your choice) to the same on all computers

Hope this helps.