Wireless NIC woes, please help!

[Breadfan]

Well, my parents are having some issues with their wireless card on their PC. Basically they asked me to look at it becuase the internet was VERY slow. (Actually, it wasn't even working when I looked at it.)

I disabled the connection and then re-enabled it (they run Win2k) and the first thing I noticed was the card was not picking up it's DHCP address. It would finally get the windows DHCP address...

Anyway, I have a similar card (Linksys WMP11 v2.7) that I wasn't using, so I swapped cards and reinstalle the drivers. I was able to get an address finally, and the net worked. Well, it turns out things were VERY slow.

So I fired up my laptop, which worked fine. Went into the router, reset things, and everything was working fine EXCEPT for my parent's machine. (Router is also a Linksys, BEFSW11S4)

I've reinstalle the card multiple times, forced driver updates to the latest driver, even deleted the driver in the WINNT/inf folder to be sure it would update the driver correctly.

Still, no go. Since it happens with both cards, I'm sure the NIC's are fine. Signal isn't an issue either, it's just 1 room away from the router and gets 93-100% signal.

Pinging the router on my laptop I get consisten 3ms reponse times with no packet loss. On my parents machine its more on the order of 5-15ms with about 50% timeouts. (150ms TTL)

I'm stumpted!

Right now my only options are to reinstall the OS (not really an option) or buy a new card. Both options are less than favorable.

What else can I do? Is this a problem with the windows netowrking subsystem? Any way to correct it?

[jazztrumpet216]

The Linksys wireless router I have sometimes randomly just drops DHCP addresses. When it does this it has to be unplugged, left for 5-10 minutes, and plugged in again to make it work properly. I have no clue what the problem is with the thing, but resetting it doesn't work.

Your problem sounds a little different, but it might be worth a shot.

[tbones1337]

I used a linksys.. but it began to show a network connection wirelessly but no internet access or other stuff.

I eventually lost the power supply and then got a D-link.

I have all the same equipment you mentioned.

Its the linksys router.. Cause we took our laptop with us on vacation and it worked 100% fine.

If you can get a new router.. Like a d-link. It hasnt crashed once on us.

[shadymg]

if you've tried different cards, so u know it's not the card, i would say it's the OS unfortunately, although i don't have the slightest clue what would be causing it

[tbones1337]

No.. i highly doubt its the OS or Card.

My linksys was f-ed up same model.. find a friend who has a Wireless router like yours but different brand.. then try it out.. see if the network is working..

If it works fine.. the router's the problem.. Use one though to test thats not a linksys routr.

[Breadfan]

But why would the router be bad? I have 2 laptops running with different wireless NIC's on that router that work fine. Also, I have a webserver, game server, and 2 more owrkstations connected through a wireless bridge that also work fine and get their DHCP just fine.

That machine is the one machine NOT working correctly. Everything else connected to the router works fine.

[jazztrumpet216]

Originally posted by Breadfan
But why would the router be bad? I have 2 laptops running with different wireless NIC's on that router that work fine. Also, I have a webserver, game server, and 2 more owrkstations connected through a wireless bridge that also work fine and get their DHCP just fine.

That machine is the one machine NOT working correctly. Everything else connected to the router works fine.

Still sounds like the problem I have. When mine goes belly up, it'll drop one or two machines, but not all of them. The rest appear to be working fine. When I plug it back in again, it'll be fine from anywhere between a few days and several weeks. There's no rhyme or reason to it, that's just what it does. I'm guessing it's just Linksys wireless routers.

[Robbie]

Did they JUST install wireless and NOW they are having a prob?!?! Or have they had wireless for sometime and NOW they have a prob?!?!
Rob

[Breadfan]

Have had for about a year and now problems develop. I did change the card, but unfortunately it was the same type of card... (Linksys WMP11 v2.7)

[tbones1337]

i use a wmp11 v2.7 in my comp for about 1.5 years no issues

[Robbie]

Hummm..... you have scanned for virus, and spyware on there box right?
Rob

[Axis]

I just got the 802.11b router and pci card last week. I had simialr issues. Here is what it turned out to be for me.

I had interference on channel 11. I changed to ad-hoc on channel 5 and forced the 11mb transfer. I disabled DHCP so my router now completely ignores broadcasts (except DNS).

I get 5mb large file transfers with no dropped packets now. It is working great.

I have sucessfully moved 45gigs between 2 wireless stations over and over for 2 days straight with no problems. Before my changes it was very slow and always errored out after about 20megs of file transfer.

[Breadfan]

Ok, I'll try that. Antivirus shouldn't be a problem but I'll admit I didn't run adaware recently.

[Robbie]

Update!?!?
Rob