I've been trying, off and on, to troubleshoot this annoyance for a while but haven't been successful.
My computers connect to a wireless AP that is attached to a wired router. The router provides all DHCP.
Every time I logon to WinXP, the connection "breaks". It doesn't "break" right away, but about a minute after logging in. I believe it is likely a DHCP issue.
I know for certain that the problem lays somewhere in Windows and not my network hardware because my other computers running Linux don't "break" their network connections.
This is a clean WinXP computer. There is no junk installed and I'm very meticulous about what processes are allowed to run.
Oh, the way that I re-establish the network connection is simply by bringing up the DLink client and re-connecting to the AP. The connection will continue to run, even after logging out, until the next time I logon to WinXP. Its as if there is a process in the startup breaking the connection. This is a perfectly clean and fresh WinXP install.
It would probably be useful to know the make and model of your router, the make and model of the working and nonworking wireless hardware, the versions of windows and Linux etc etc.
Most likely issues - interference which the windows box is more sensitive to because of its physical location, powersaving enabled on the network device, bugs in the windows driver software.
The WinXP computer is in the same room as one of the Linux computers. Signal strength is a steady 85% All drivers are current.
I just tried using a static IP, but had the same results (connectivity lost after each login). I still have to manually "bump" (re-connect) the connection after logging in, even though the tray icon doesn't show the connection as lost.. This seems to suggest that it isn't DHCP, but something else going on.
Anyone familiar with WinXP enough to know what exactly it does with network connections at each login? Something is causing it to get lost. This is a clean and fresh WinXP install, so it must be something in Windows.
wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@l42g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
Install XP SP2. XP had a problem sometimes dropping connections that SP2 normally fixes... (The XP WZC service is by default configured to enable 802.1 x authentications. This authentication process would often cause the system to drop the wireless connection about every three to five minutes.) To avoid this problem 802.1x authentication should be disabled. If you want to do it without installing sp2 : Click Start, point to Connect To, Click Show all connections, and then double-click your wireless network. On the General tab, click Properties. Click the Wireless Networks tab. Under Preferred Network, click your network and then click Properties. Click the Authentication tab, and then clear the Enable IEEE 802.1x authentication for this network check box. (
formatting link
) or If you changed or upgraded your firewall software or anti-virus software, try disabling it. The Windows firewall may be on without you being aware. Disable the Windows firewall. Update the Router firmware? Make sure that EACH PC has a unique IP address? or Connect all bar the XP machine, make sure all is ok, then connect the XP box. As soon as it connects, 'repair' the connection on the XP machine, or use winipcfg or ipconfig to perform a manual DHCP release and renew... If you are using 128-bit WEP, try using a 64-bit key instead. Depending upon your hardware, there could be an interoperability problem between the wifi modules you are connecting through. Turn on MAC address filtering in the router?
Yep, but you didn't bother to supply any makers, models, or numbers, of your hardware, so I can't really offer specific suggestions.
The easiest way to determine the cause of failure is to enable Wireless Zero Config logging.
It's quite an ordeal slogging through the voluminous logs produced by WZC, but the answer should be in there somewhere.
However, before you embark on that adventure, you may have a point about DHCP. Start -> run -> cmd ipconfig What do you get before and after you "login".
Your reply is leading me very close to the fix. I forgot all about WZC as I had been using the DLink client. Using WZC, everything works like it should. I don't have to "bump" the connection after logging on. So... It looks like it must be with the DLink drivers and client. I'll try weeding that out now. Before tinkering with the DLink stuff, I have a new suspicion first. I just noticed in Device Manager that the wireless card is mislabeled as "Wireless PCI Adapter #2" even though there is just one card installed. I now remember Windoze mislabling another piece of hardware (soundcard) once as a "#2" and it caused some weird problems. I'll try deleting it and rebooting.
At some point, probably due to drivers, the card appeared different 'enough' for the OS to treat it as such.
Since you don't mention what sort of network interface it's not possible to pinpoint why. But a device moved to a different USB port, or card slot would definitely do it. Combine that with screwing around with drivers and it'll certainly happen.
An OS or driver update also does it, sometimes. I just finished setting up XP SP1 on a Compaq V6000 laptop with a built in Broadcom wireless card, using the original HP recovery CD set. After initial installation, it would connect nicely using wireless. Of course, any recovery CD that's older than 30 seconds requires hundreds of megabloats of updates for everything. After multiple rounds of updates for the OS, apps, drivers, and junkware, it now connects using "wireless something #2". Apparently, this happened during an update of either WZC or the Broadcom drivers. No hardware juggling or screwing around required.
Hmmm.... You gave me an idea. The machine I'm using and one of my laptops are also my test machines, where I plug in random wireless devices, check if they work, and then either put them back in the box, or deliver to a customer. If the device came with an insallation/uninstallation program, I would usually uninstall the driver.
So, I go unto: Rt Clik on My Computah -> Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager and View -> show hidden devices (This is the same as your command line incantations)
It was showing a huge number of ancient devices and duplicates, many of which are long gone. Some of the duplicates are obvious entries for the same device, walking through multiple USB ports. My printer collection is also a mess for similar reasons. Equally irritating are entries from mulitiple anti-virus products and multiple AVG versions. What a mess.
MS Windows Installer Cleanup Tool
Time to do some house cleaning. Thanks for the reminder and have a nice day after the Day of the Turkeys.
On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:34:27 -0800 (PST), snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in :
Are you sure the initial connection is real and working? Windows XP has a problem in that it can report an initial connection that doeesn't actually exist, which then seems to later break.
I haven't fully verified this, but one way it seems to happen is when Windows XP is shut down or put to sleep or hibernation. Then when Windows XP wakes up it thinks it's still got a working DHCP lease, but that lease has been idled out by the wireless access point. Eventually Windows XP figures out that it doesn't actually have a connection.
Try disconnecting from the wireless before shutting down, sleeping, or hibernating, and see if that affects the problem when Windows XP start back up.
Also check your logs to see if some error is being logged when this happens.
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