Keep losing wireless connection

[lemmy999]

I have an old dell Lattitude laptop with Windows XP and I use a PCMCIA Linksys WPC54GS wireless network adapter. I have always been able to connect to my US Robotics wireless router with no problems. However I had to upgrade to SP2 and SMS client and McAfee EPO Orchestrator (these are required to connect to the network at my work). After this the computer got very slow and the network wasn't working well. I have since removed McAfee and the McAfee EPO and the computer is running much better. However I am still have wireless problems. When I start the computer it gets the signal, obtains the IP address (DHCP) and everthing works fine for a few minutes. Then after a few minutes the network just freezes. Everything shows that there is still a good signal and that I am connected, but I can't even ping the router. If I unplug the PCMCIA WPC54GS and immediately plug it back in. It reaquires new network information and everything works again for a few minutes. Or if I just disabled then re-enable the wireless network adapter it will work for a few minutes. I have now idea what could be causing this problem. Thanks for any help.

I have noticed that in the Linksys software (window that comes up when you click on the system tray) it shows a picture of the wireless card, the access point (router) and the internet. When it is working it says that I am connected and the pictures indicates a valid connection between all three. But when it stops working it says "you are connected to the access point, but the internet cannot be found" and the picture indicates a broken connection between the access point and the internet. I find this strange since I can't even ping the "access point" even though it thinks it is connected to it. Also, all of my other computer (wired and wireless) are able to access the router and the internet just fine.

[Ob1]

use the windows wireless client instead of the linksys software to manage your wireless connections and see if your problem still persists.

[lemmy999]

I kept trying to disable the windows client and just use the linksys but windows would not let me uncheck that box. But when I removed and then re-installed the linksys driver/software I didn't let it load at startup and so windows is controlling it by itself. The connection seems to be much more reliable now, but the reported connectin speed is much slower. I guess this is because of the "speedbooster" thing? But the speed is fast enough so I am not going to worry about it. However it is puzzilng why I could not uncheck the "let windows configure my wirless". I could uncheck it, but when I clicked "ok" it would pause and then pop up a window saying that at least one of my configuration settings had not been changed. Then the next time I went to that area, the check box would still be becked.

[Ob1]

personally i would uninstall the wireless utility and just have the wireless card drivers installed if you can get just the drivers for your card.

[lemmy999]

Originally Posted by Ob1 personally i would uninstall the wireless utility and just have the wireless card drivers installed if you can get just the drivers for your card.

They may be available, but I couldn't find them anywere. When you download what is labeled the "drivers" it actually installs the utility and automatically sets it to load at startup.

[Ob1]

go to device manager, open up the properties for the WPC54GS then the drivers tab, click on driver details. take note of each file listed in there and then uninstall the software from add/remove programs which i believe should also uninstall the drivers for it as well. then before doing anything else go into the c:\windows\system32 folder and double check to make sure all files associated with the wpc54gs are uninstalled, if not, move them to another temp folder and make sure everything is still ok with your system. if you see or have not problems then go ahead and delete them from your system.

next make sure you have the latest driver for your wpc4gs, next extract the files from the .zip download. next go back to device manager, and scan for hardware changes, it should detect the wireless nic, it will prompt you for drivers, browse to where you extracted the files, and point it to the "WPC54GS Setup Wizard 2.1\Driver\NT" folder, and it should install the drivers for the nic without having to install the linksys software. then you should be able to just use the windows wireless utility to manage your wireless connections.

[lemmy999]

Thanks. I will give that a try.