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Connection problem (WMP11 & BEFW11S4)

Hi,

I share cable Internet access between several computers at home. Linksys router BEFW11S4 has one wired and three wireless computers connected.

Among wireless connections I have one desktop with WMP11 wireless NIC, laptop connected through WET11 and another laptop with embedded wireless capabilities.

My problem is with the desktop. Lately it stopped automatically connecting to the router. Manual connection requires several attempts and after that I either still could not access router (http://192.168.1.1) and Internet, or can have such access for several minutes only.

All other computers access Internet just fine. The laptop with WET11 Bridge is located in the same room as desktop. Desktop used to work fine exactly at this location. Desktop in question is running Win'98SE.

I have verified the following:

  1. WEP and MAC filtering is disabled
  2. SSID on the desktop and router match
  3. MAC of the desktop is in DHCP table of the router
  4. Though I have NIS (Norton Internet Security) 2003 installed, disabling it does not change the picture
  5. Router's IP address is used on desktop as both DHCP Server and Default Gateway.

I have already tried to no avail:

  1. Changing the channel from 6 (Linksys default) to 1
  2. Uninstalling, removing and reinstalling the wireless card
  3. Running LSPFix utility on the desktop (found nothing)
  4. Uninstalling Microsoft security patch KB891711

When I ping the router from the desktop I get either all time outs or a combination of normal responses with time outs.

I run Ad-Aware SE Personal and SpyBot in addition to Norton Anti-virus on the desktop and it seems to be clean (could not get recent updates because of the connection problem).

I had the same subject discussed at comp.dcom.modems.cable and microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion since I was not aware of this group. Tried most of the suggestions but could not solve the problem.

Reply to
Eugene F.
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Which version BEFW11S4? Look on the serial number tag. I have a V4 and it works just fine. There have been several reports of the original version hardware crapping out without warning. However, if other wireless devices work with the router, it's probably not the culprit.

Do the laptops with the WET11 and embedded unspecified wireless card work? It would seem to be the case but it's not obvious from our description.

What changes when you lose access? Run: IPCONFIG IPCONFIG /ALL ROUTE /PRINT or NETSTAT /R/N before and after you lose connection on the desktop. I'm trying to determine if it's hardware problem with the WMP11 card, driver issue, Windoze issue, or something else.

Are you sure it's the wireless? Have you tried a direct LAN CAT5 connection between the desktop and the router? Does it also have DHCP problems and disconnects after a few minutes? If that works, it's a fair bet that the operating system and most of the hardware is functional.

Is this manually configured or are you using DHCP to configure the IP addresses in the desktop? I'll assume DHCP but I can't tell for sure from the above description.

I had a WMP11 PCI card in my palatial office for a few days. Nothing would get it to even be recognized, much less work correctly. I tried all the usual remidies without much luck. Finally, I moved it to another slot. That's when I found the rubber band smashed into the PCI connector causing a bad connection. Try a different slot.

That patch is a mess. Leave it out until you find the culprit:

formatting link

OK. You don't have a connection. Period. Never mind losing the connection after a few minutes. If the other wireless devices work, it's not the router. The easiest way to test this is to move the WMP11 card to a know working desktop and see if it works there. If yes, then you have a hardware or software issue with the computah. If not, then the card is defective or dead.

You can also try the card and desktop with a borrowed access point. Lacking a borrowed access point, there's always the neighbors system. Can you "see" the same collection of neighbors access points on all the wireless clients?

Good enough. I prefer Grisoft AVG for viruses and Microsoft Anti-Spyware for spyware.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Jeff,

Thank you very much for the reply.

It is version 4 with the original firmware.

Reply to
Eugene F.

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