Bizzare wireless problem

I have one user with a Sony Vaio laptop. Up to this point he has had no problems. Suddenly he cannot connect to the network with wireless anywhere in the building except for one particular location. He even has a wireless router in his office about 5 feet from his laptop. It will not connect to the network except for that one spot in the building. He is the only person who is having this problem. All the other users with laptops can connect anywhere just fine as can the cart full of general use laptops we have. My laptop can also connect anywhere. I can get to the admin pages of all the access points and routers in the building and verify they are all working and configured properly. Nothing has been changed with the wireless or network in general.

Another odd thing is that I can take his laptop out of the building and connect to joe shmos public network with no problems. It's only this strange issue in this one building with this one laptop being able to connect in only one place. If you look at "view wireless networks" it sees the network in the building with a strong signal no matter where the laptop is. If I pick up is laptop and walk down the hall to that magic spot it connects automatically and its fine. Walk back to his office and its off again.

I've reinstalled his wireless hardware with no result deleting it from device manager and letting windows redetect and install it successfully. I've disabled all anti spam/virus apps running as well as anything in startup. Nothing has worked.

It's mystifying because no other laptop in the building has this problem and why would his work anywhere outside the building and only it one spot in the building?

If anyone has an idea I'd appreciate it.

 

Well, your problem definition clearly shows is not the user, nor the network but the laptop network adapter unproperly working.

My concerns is that it works in one paricular spot only, very strange, perhaps that place is what we call the "hot" spot

Anyway, ask him what modification he did to the laptop recently, the answer could be there.

 

Yeah I asked him what had changed recently and of course "nothing" has changed. Said nothing new has been installed or updated. It just stopped connecting to the network.

I'll have to take a second look at whats running on this laptop. Seems like it would be an all or nothing kind of deal though. If the laptop works in one place it should work everywhere since no other laptop is having the problem.

I'll post more info if I find any weirdness running on this thing.

Thanks.

 

Try this, measure the RF receive signal where he is getting connected, and measure it a couple of feets farther where he doesn't. It could be that his receiver is not working well and that at that hot spot the RSL is very close to the receiver threshold so he still gets connected but as soon as he moves away then he gets no signal at all. This could be an antenna issue, it could be a broken receiver as well.

 

Another clue that may shed some light on the problem. I disabled the wireless on the laptop and then plugged in a pcmcia Orinoco wireless lan PC card.

Same problem as when it was using its internal wireless card.

 

Then is not the wireless card. What is he using to manage the network connectivity, windows or another application?

 

He's using windows to manage it. Theres no other utility present that I can see.

Thx

 

Could it be something related with power management? The dapater can be setup to go off after a while to save battery.

 

Been buried with a billion other problems and haven't had a chance to see if power management had anything to do with it.

As a short term fix I set him up with a wire to the laptop which made him happy. He can at least use the network.

 

Thax for your help btw...sorry. Always in a hurry