Intermittent Wireless Connection

westiea

Hi all

posting on behalf of OH as he will not admit defeat - even though its been one month since problems started!

Please bear with me as its a wee bit long winded.

Running XP professional with Zone alarm and Avira on a 6 year old Thinkpad T42.One month ago started getting intermittent wireless connection but works fine on an ethernet connection and here is whats been tried so far......

- scans - all usual - malwarebytes, superantivirus, adaware, spybot s&d - nothing shown
- clean reinstall xp/xp professional
- speedfan shows all ok i.e 30% on hardware and general temp sensor-all wireless settings and passwords are as before (2 other laptops used in house have no problems with connectivity)
- tried running with only windows and modem firewall
- all drivers updated i.e lenovo, intel (Intel PRO/Wireless 2200bg) etc
- ran pc doctor- no problems shown
- Peak wireless usb adpter - worked for 24 hours and again back to this intermittent connection.

The System Event log shows Event 4201
The battery holds charge badly (2-3 mins max) but has been like this for a few years
The connectivity varies between a couple of hours with no problems then 4-5 hours with no connection.

Any help from our lovely geeks would be appreciated as I am now an IT widow!

fwor

The problem with wireless is that you have no way of knowing what other radio transmissions are occurring in your neighbourhood, nor what they are being used for.

It could be a neighbour making very heavy use of the wifi frequency channel that your wireless access point is set to, or it could be some completely different type of wireless device that is broadcasting at a frequency that conflicts.

Have you tried changing the channel that you are using? If your wireless device is set to a specific one, try one that's as far away from what it currently uses as you can get.

[OTOH you may have a faulty wireless router...]

esuhl

If you want to see whether nearby wireless networks are interfering with the signal of your network, it might be worth a quick look at InSSIDer or NetStumbler. They show the wi-fi networks in your area, signal strength and which channels the networks are using.

You can try adjusting the position of the aerial (or access point) or the channel to see if signal strength improves...

westiea

Thanks for replying but............

2 other laptops used in house have no problems with connectivity

9217niall

New router? I honestly don't know.

westiea

Thanks again niall - Browntoa and aliEnRIK where are you :eek:

esuhl

westiea wrote: »

(2 other laptops used in house have no problems with connectivity)

The System Event log shows Event 4201

Ah... missed that bit! Are you able to test the laptop with a different wireless adapter?

I did a quick search of "event 4201" and a few people with the issue had problems with DHCP - have you tried setting a static local IP address in the wireless adapter settings?

If you run "ipconfig /all" (in a command prompt) before and after the issue occurs, do you notice the IP address of the network adapter changing?

westiea

He is using a fixed IP.The symptoms are the same whether he uses a fixed I.P or not.:( He also says the mouse (touchpad) goes a bit slow and jerky when this happens?

The results of ipconfig /all are -

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : chris
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Netwo
Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-12-F0-62-D1-06
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.11
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1




The problem seems more intermittant now rather than unusable in terms of complete inability to connect - hence my late reply esuhl. But it does have periods of 4201's while it reconnects e.g -

Information 8/2/2010 10:29:06 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 10:29:03 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:56:25 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:56:20 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:53:50 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:53:46 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:53:05 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:53:00 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:43:15 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:43:12 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:35:25 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:35:20 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:35:10 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:35:02 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:33:15 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:33:08 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:32:50 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS
Information 8/2/2010 8:32:43 AM Tcpip None 4201 N/A CHRIS


Thanks for your replies, atm he is waiting for it to 'pack up' again to post ip config etc.

esuhl

Hmmm... I keep finding so many different suggestions as to what might fix the issue! (See Yahoo and Google results here.)

It might be worth checking the wireless adapter properties (go into wireless connection properties then click "Configure..." next to the adapter name). If you click the the "Power Management" tab, you might want to disable any power managent features to see if that helps...

Also, it would probably be a good idea to check the list of wireless networks within range and make sure that only your network is set up to connect - just in case the laptop sees another network and breaks the connection to connect to that one instead...

Let us know how you get on :-)

balloo_2

Here's a reply from another PC dummy I was having Intermittent conections asked questions did all the replies, contacted my ISP still the same. On one of my Inspections (OH calls it messing the computer up and costing us a fortune) I stumbled upon how to get into my modem settings and discovered that there were updates and fixes available for it from the manufacturer did that and touch wood nothing has happened since. Worth a thought maybe.