Belkin Pre-N notebook card problems

I have had a Belkin Pre-N router and a Pre-N notebook card for several months now. Up until recently, my laptop has been running Windows 2000, and I was forced to use a free WPA-PSK client available from McAfee in order to support WPS-PSK security. In any event, I've had rather flawless connectivity and excellent data rates with the Pre-N using WPA-PSK.

The other day, I decided to upgrade the OS on the laptop to XP(SP2). After a fresh install of XP, I installed the Pre-N notebook card software and drivers. Since then, I've had absolutely lousy connectivity either by using the Belkin application, or by letting Windows manage the wireless connection. When I do achieve connectivity, it's at a few Kbps - even when in the same room with the router. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what may be wrong with my configuration, and what I might do to to correct it? Thanks.

Reply to
J&SB
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Signal strength?

Any other networks on the same channel?

Reply to
John Navas

Google for winsockxpfix.exe and run it to reset the TCP/IP stack. Do also what has been suggested for firewall, anti-virus, etc. You might (probably already have done this?) reset the router to basic config until you get the connection issues resolved. Run the wireless network wizard sometimes helps if you have been setting up manually. Wireless Zero Configuration service should be disabled if using the Belkin utility. Likewise the Belkin utility must not be running of using WZC. The wireless networking wizard needs WZC.

Check all of the wireless settings: uncheck 802.11x authentication, select infrastructure only, disable autoconnect to non-preferred networks. Make sure your network is the only entry in Preferred networks.

Reply to
Quaoar

Looks like a combination of 3 things. First off, connectivity was just fine this morning when I booted up the laptop. There must have been excessive interference yesterday in the neighborhood. Secondly, I turned off the Windows firewall and throughput indeed improved. Lastly, changed to AES on the WPA-PSK and got the most noticeable increase in data rate. Things look just fine now. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

Reply to
J&SB

Really, really bad idea! The XP Firewall is an important security tool that doesn't measurably hurt performance. You might as well drive without brakes so that you can go faster.

Reply to
John Navas

From my experiences, poor network speed is most often due to firewall or antivirus settings.

Turn them off and see how it performs.

Eg. Avast antivirus reduces my network speed enormously if the network scanner module is enabled.

Also make sure that the XP firewall is off.

Cheers

Rob

Reply to
me here

Get a life.

If you have a decent firewall, then you dont use the XP one...its shit.

Also this is for testing only.

I dont see any suggestions comming from you.

Rob

Reply to
me here

Got one, thanks.

It's actually pretty good.

Fair enough.

Then you're not paying attention.

Reply to
John Navas

I didn't say not to test it -- I responded to your categorical advice to turn it off.

I doubt it. It was probably something else.

Reply to
John Navas

I'd be interested to know how you intend to test the effect of the firewall on a given situation (problem) without turning it off.

In this case the "actually pretty good" XP firewall appears to have been a culprit.

Rob

Reply to
me here

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