Can't see my Wireless

Maybe the update didn't take and bunged up the firmware?

 

Or may be he connected the modem to the whiskey bottle

 

hahaha. I don't think I've ever been that drunk monkeyman. I don't think I have that is. Yeah firmware has been updated twice. I might just get a new router....

 

New router, new router, we want a new router.

Which one?

 

IDK...i'm looking at the Netgears now. They're pricey. I'll go to Best Buy tomorrow and get one and see how well it works

Rum and Coke gooooooooood

 

Lol, dry Canadian Club Classic good too

Netgear is my preference also, they have several good models, get the one with N, extended range and MIMO.

 

I just swapped out a balky Belkin for a netgear and the change was definitely worth it.

 

I see. Well I guess i'll go pick up the Netgear today. Monkeyman you can just send me a money order later to reimburse me

 

The Czech's in the Male!

 

I got my friend's Macbook here with me and it connects fine to my Linksys router.

I bought the Netgear also and I couldn't find the network when I searched.

Has to be something wrong with my computer's settings...

 

Why do I have to reimburse you?

Anyway, here is, don't spend it all at once

 

Man think of the router I can buy with that

But it seems that its not my router though. Something has to be going on with the settings of my OS

 

Did you get the Netgear?

 

Yep....same thing happened

 

What?????????????????????

The clean install

 

Yeah thats what im getting rdy for

 

Back from the fresh install....still can't connect.

 

Just out of curiousity, what're the specs on the laptop? Also, when you did the re-install, did you go all the way up to SP3, or just to SP2?

Another thing to do is to try and get an idea of what the Aether around your setup looks like (i.e., fancy-pants language for trying to get a sense of how strong your wireless signal is, and whether there are any nearby signals that might be stepping on it).

The tool I've used before to get a look at nearby wireless signals is netstumbler, which is free and can be d/l'ed from the author's website. There are also a couple of other free alternatives to netstumbler that have been put out, some of which are summarized on this webpage.

You could also try running the Microsoft Network Diagnostics Tool, another semi-useful utility from MS that is intentionally hidden away instead of being instantly accessible (Rant'n'Rave: why is it MS has such a bad habit of giving the really irrelevant B.S. front and center attention, but the half-way decent stuff either doesn't get installed by default, or else is hidden away and not talked about except on some MSDN webpage? Ok, end of rant ).

 

Check my user profile...Hardware specs are in there. I'm using Intel 3945ABG Wireless Card...

Last time I did fresh install I went straight to SP3. This time I just stopped at SP2.

I woke up this morning and it connected. The Networking elves must have came last night and fixed it for me. I'm going to create a restore point, install SP3, turn the wireless on and off to see if it works a few times. I'll keep you guys posted

edit: Ok I spoke to soon. It was connected to the network, but when I unplugged the lan I couldn't get onto any websites or even into the router config. I tried unplugging the router and it's back to the same:

Tries to connect then it says"Waiting for the network" then it just stops.

 

I don't recall what brand/model laptop you've got, or how old it is (and I'm too lazy to go through all of the posts on the thread this morning ) - if it's old enough, the wireless NIC might be starting to crap out.

After a while, I think the NICs begin to get faulty with age. I think that's what happened to the NIC on my Vaio Z1A, which is now about 5-1/2 years old - basically, it couldn't hold onto the wireless signal when doing any sort of big download (also, it was a "b" only card), even after I upgraded to a new Netgear router. Since I'm going to be replacing it soon, rather than figuring out how to upgrade the internal NIC, I just bought a wireless b/g adapter card (also Netgear) and I haven't had a single problem with dropped connections since then.

If your system's got some years on it, you might try getting a wireless adapter card (I'd go with the same brand as the router, just to maximize inter-compliance) to see if that makes any difference. Keep all the packaging nice and neat so that, if it doesn't solve the problem, you can just return it for a refund.

Also, one of the free utilities I mentioned might be able to give you an indication if the wireless NIC is having problems with signals, albeit only indirectly (e.g., netstumbler might show gaps in the histogram for what is an otherwise strong signal, say from your own router).

 

Compal HEL80
CPU: 1.83GHz Core Duo
HDD: 200GB, 7200 RPM
GPU: Nvidia 7600 256MB
RAM: 2GB DDR2
Intel 3945ABG Wireless Card

It's only about a year old. What am I looking for in Netstumbler?

 

Ok, that scotches the the-NIC's-too-old-theory, although one further thing to check on that is to open it up and see if any of the connections are loose.

On Netstumbler, I'd play around with it a bit so you get an idea of the various things it does, and the info it can show you. Then, check to see how many different networks it picks up, in particular see if it can pick up yours, and see what it has to say about signal strength, signal/noise ratio, and whatnot.

Also (and I don't remember exactly which page of the GUI it's on) you should be able to click on a particular signal and open up a graphing function that graphs the signal strength over time - it should look like a slowly scrolling chart - select your router's signal, or the strongest signal Netstumbler finds, and then let it run for a while to see if you get any time-periods where the signal just drops off precipitously or disappears altogether, before coming back to full strength. If that happens with every signal Netstumbler can see, then I would take that as a sign that your NIC is having issues.

 

Here's a couple of minutes of my network

 

Ok. For comparison here's an almost 20 minute run on my system. For reference, I'm sitting about 8 feet away from the large bookcase on top of which sits the router itself, so the straightline distance is probably about 11 or 12 feet. Also, there are three other routers broadcasting on the same channel, although for the last third of the run two of those routers were not being picked up (and when they were, they had weak signals to begin with).



Your signal seems to be stronger/less noisy than mine was, but what looks a little suggestive is the constant up/down up/down of your signal in appreciable time increments whereas the signal/noise spikes on mine are much finer (i.e., of less time duration). To my (very untrained) eye, that looks like it might be indicating some sort of cyclic interference that's degrading your signal for a few seconds at a time before it bounces back.

Do you know if you have any other likely radio sources in the area, such as a radio station, or cordless phone (the older cordless phones broadcast on the same frequency as b/g wireless and can play havoc with a wi-fi signal), or even something like a microwave (if you're within 10 feet of an operating microwave oven, that, too, can play havoc with your signal).

What about the roaming sensitivity of your NIC - is it set to aggressively roam, or not? If it's set to aggressively roam, the up/down up/down pattern of your signal might be causing your NIC to try latching onto another wireless signal if there's another wireless router broadcasting in your vicinity.

 

It's set to the default aggressiveness since I just did a fresh install. Haven't played with it yet.

Nothing else in my apt broadcasting anything. No cordless phone or radio

i'm right next to my router (plugged into it)

 

Go ahead and set roaming to the lowest. Also, sources of radio interference could very well be outside of your apartment; e.g., in the apartments nextdoor, or above you, or below you.

 

In recent news i've gained limited connectivity to my network...

 

I'll keep fingers & toes crossed!

 

Well that's using Windows to connect. When I try connecting with Intel's utility there's no such luck.

I'm going to call Powernotebooks today and see what they say.

 

I'm afraid that all this time your computer was not to be blamed of, it could be very well your ISP connection. Let's try to troubleshoot it. What ISP type do you have, DSL, cable or fiber?

 

Comcast Cable

 

Great, call them right away and tell them that you are having big trouble, I bet you anything that either the coax connector is broken at the house entrance, or that the cable is being damage at the curb. Also, since is their modem they might give you a new one.

 

I'm on the phone with tech support from powernotebooks now

 

I don't think you'll get any further, I'm convinced is your physical cable connection.

 

yeah i'll call comcast if tech can't do it

 

As I said, we have troubleshoot the SW and HW side from inside out, it must be the cable connection.

 

I just got home and came back from stand by mode and I have a perfect connection to my wireless. I unplug from the ethernet and its working fine.

I turn the wireless off and turn it back on and its the same problem.

I didn't finish the with the tech support with Powernotebooks b/c i had errands to run so i'm just going to send them an email tonight of everything i've done and talk to them again tomorrow after work

 

May be you have some bad ghost in the house working against your wireless connection

 

LoL. Yeah they're playing with my emotions. I'm not going to work on it anymore tonight, so i'll let you know how things go with tomorrow. *sigh* 89 post on this. I'm regretting doing a reinstall of XP

 

One more post and you will have a perfect 1,111 post reading

and if you get another green boxe, then you will have 1,11111

 

Here's that one more post!! :laugh:

Well I just took out my notebook from standby mode and once again I have a perfect connection to my wireless. If I turn my wifi card off and try to reconnect I know it wont. What is going on with this

 

I would grab a few other versions of your wifi driver and try them.

 

I think i've tried 3 different versions. The one shipped, the one I had installed before reinstalling XP, and the newest version on Intel's website

 

Convert to Vista

 

Neverrrrr!!
I would if it was free...I spent all the money you gave me earlier in the thread

 

Hahahaha, I'll give you more man, don't get discouraged.

Have you ever thought it could be a virus?

More money for Vista

 

A virus? No, that hasn't really crossed my mind. That would be bad considering I just got this HDD

 

Run NOD32 is free and is good at finding viruses for lunch

 

Do you have DEP (Data Encryption Protection) enabled? According to these Intel Release Notes for the Intel ProSet/Wireless software, if DEP is set to "Always On" in the boot.ini file, it will cause major problems with the wireless card.

 

I think his laptop is not HW DEP enable.