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    is my wireless card dying?

    Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by link1313, Jun 6, 2011.

  1. link1313

    link1313 Notebook Virtuoso

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    Hi fellow NBR members,

    I have a roughly 3 year old intel 5100 wifi card. I recently had a power outage with my laptop on and since then I have experienced consistently choppy internet (loses connection and reconnects to the wireless a lot). When I plug into wired the problem goes away. Do wifi cards need replacing after awhile? I'm fairly sure the problem is occurring on my computer only. and my ipod will be able to connect but my computer won't.
     
    link1313, Jun 6, 2011
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  2. Sxooter

    Sxooter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Wifi cards have a pretty high failure rate for something with no moving parts, because they make a fair bit of heat in their transmitters, which heats up the whole card. I've cooked a few in my time. They usually degrade for a while before they just outright die, so you may well be seeing a slowly degrading card in your machine.

    Go to an internet cafe / village inn / some place with free wifi and see how it works there. Pay attention to the signal level etc. If everyone else has 5 bars and you got 1, yeah, there might be a problem.

    First thing to do is to disconnect and reconnect the antenna wires. This is slightly harder than unplugging a set of speakers on a stereo, but only because the connectors are so small. They'll snap into place once you've got them lined up and press them into place. sometimes a bit of cruft grows between the connections and simply reseating them will fix it.

    If that doesn't help, get a replacement off of ebay and replace it. Since they're cheap, I tend to order two or three at once so I've got spares in case things go wrong in the future.
     
    Sxooter, Jun 7, 2011
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  3. MeBuyBattery.com

    MeBuyBattery.com Company Representative

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    It could be dying. If it happened after a power outage it could be just a corrupted driver. I'd get the newest driver from the manufacture's website and then uninstall and reinstall the new one.

    I know from experience I've fixed a lot of wireless cards by just reinstalling the drivers. One reason is that with the reinstall of the driver the computer will rebuild it's tcp stack and this fixes problems as well.

    Either case.. try reinstalling drivers and if doesn't resolve. Just get a new one. They are dirt cheap these days. :)

    Take care,
    Shannon
     
    MeBuyBattery.com, Jun 16, 2011
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