EXTREMELY slow authentication over WiFi --Please Help!

Hi all,

I'm the recent owner of a Lenovo ThinkPad T61, specs as follows:

T8300 CPU, 4GB RAM, 120GB (5.4k) HDD, DVD writer
15.4" WXGA display, Quadro NVS 140M
Bluetooth(currently disabled, a/b/g Wifi (Atheros chipset), Fingerprint reader

I was running Vista Business, but downgraded to XP Pro using the Lenovo downgrade discs. The machine is joined to my domain at work (I'm a sysadmin there) but I often use it at home.

My problem is this: Authenticating to a network share (i.e., Start->Run->\\(ip-address)\sharename) at home over wireless is glacially slow. It can take 90 seconds for the login\password screen to show up. Once in, it's fine for reading files, but if I save something to the system (best example, doing Right-Click->Save As... in Firefox and saving to the network share) also takes an incredibly long time.

The machine I'm authenticating to is no slouch (Core 2 E6600, 4GB RAM, wired in via gig Ethernet to my router), and I'm using a D-Link DGL-4300 GamersLounge router configured for WPA-PSK security, which has been great for me for over two years. Both my previous Powerbook G4 Titanium and Dell Latitude C640 got an authentication prompt within a few seconds seconds. I disabled SuperG on the router to see if this might help as well; no dice. This is extremely frustrating, made more so by the fact that regular surfing over WiFi is perfectly fine. Connecting to the system with Remote Desktop is also speedy, so this authentication issue continues to make no sense to me.

I'm running out of ideas, so any help would be sincerely appreciated.

 

Change your security to WPA AES Personal. Use a min of 20 chr Random generated all printable.

 

Not sure I can do that, as I'm not sure all of my WiFi devices support AES.

Will changing my encryption from WPA-PSK to WPA-AES really change the speed of my authentication to another box over the network? Or is this just an option for increased security? I ask, because my other two laptops were WPA-PSK, and as I've said before, connecting to the router itself (plus Internet speed, and Remote Desktop connection speed) is just fine. It doesn't sound to me like changing this would affect the speed with which I could authenticate to another Windows XP box for file sharing.

 

Vista does not do well with PSK (TKIP). Now it has been proven that it subjected to brute force attack if 8 chr dictionary words were used.

Make sure you are not running IP6 on Vista. UserID's the same on the computers you will be sharing files, helps too.

 

As stated in my first post, I am no longer running Vista. I backed down to XP Pro, which both my laptop and the desktop I'm connecting to are running.

 

Do you have identical login/passwords on all machines? If not, create them on all machines that connect to each other. That might help speed things up. Also, verify all local policies and make sure they match your local settings (I'm assuming that the AD policies control your machine while connected at work, and you use local policies at home).

 

I don't have any AD policies for my work account, other than the default domain policy, since my account has full admin privileges there. Local machine policy has no changes from default on my desktop or my ThinkPad.

To fix it at home, I may need to create a new account and copy my current user profile to it. I'll do it if I have to, though I'd like to avoid it.

Note also that authentication when wired to the home network is quick, without the delays that the WiFi connection has. This is part of what puzzles me.

Thanks KeB for the advice so far. Reps to you.

 

As a test, disable any router wireless security and see if wifi authentication speed increases. Also, are you using WZC to manage your wireless?