Travel Technology - Home wi-fi problem - help appreciated

Hi everyone,

So, after moving 10K miles, I am more or less settled into SIN. Visitors will eventually be welcome. I've been having THE most annoying wi-fi problem EVER though (and I bet it is more annoying that the one YOU had) and would appreciate help.

I have a DSL service hooked up in the house which is almost certainly hooked up right. I have an all-in-one Alcatel box that serves as the modem and 802.11b router. No problems with connecting via my Dell desktop, but my Centrino Thinkpad will not hold the signal for more than 3 mins. In fact, it drops the signal with military precision at 3 min intervals.

So I meddled with XP and voila! Going into network connections and clicking "repair" when highlighting the wi-fi connection solves the problem, but this has to be done each time I resume from standby, restart, etc. which is not much fun.

I imagine this has something to do with renewing the IP or something, but I have no idea what exactly needs to be done and how. If anyone has any ideas, they would be greatly appreciated. Drinks on me next time you're in SIN :)

Hi everyone,

So, after moving 10K miles, I am more or less settled into SIN. Visitors will eventually be welcome. I've been having THE most annoying wi-fi problem EVER though (and I bet it is more annoying that the one YOU had) and would appreciate help.

I have a DSL service hooked up in the house which is almost certainly hooked up right. I have an all-in-one Alcatel box that serves as the modem and 802.11b router. No problems with connecting via my Dell desktop, but my Centrino Thinkpad will not hold the signal for more than 3 mins. In fact, it drops the signal with military precision at 3 min intervals.

So I meddled with XP and voila! Going into network connections and clicking "repair" when highlighting the wi-fi connection solves the problem, but this has to be done each time I resume from standby, restart, etc. which is not much fun.

I imagine this has something to do with renewing the IP or something, but I have no idea what exactly needs to be done and how. If anyone has any ideas, they would be greatly appreciated. Drinks on me next time you're in SIN :)


Hmm... Sounds more like a problem in the Alacatel. I imagine it's one of the speedtouch models?

Try disabling DHCP on your laptop and just setting it up with a static IP (pick the one it normally gets assigned) and then call us back :)

Hmm... Sounds more like a problem in the Alacatel. I imagine it's one of the speedtouch models?

Try disabling DHCP on your laptop and just setting it up with a static IP (pick the one it normally gets assigned) and then call us back :)

Sure sounds like an IP issue, could the computer be releasing the IP address every time it goes into standby thus effectively necessitating a reboot of the modem to refresh the address?

If so sounds like a static IP should solve the problem.

If it does a release, it should also do a renew when it comes back up.

Did you check the ibm site, etc for new drivers for the wireless device on the laptop? Just a hunch.

-David

If it does a release, it should also do a renew when it comes back up.

Did you check the ibm site, etc for new drivers for the wireless device on the laptop? Just a hunch.

-David

It SHOULD do a renew - but then, a lot of times, my Dell doesn't, either - One option that I'm fond of is start-->run: ipconfig /renew

This resets the IP address, and only takes 2 seconds out of your life. Of course, in a perfect world, you shouldn't have to do this at all - what about standby as opposed to hibernation/sleep?

Hibernating completely shuts down the computer so that will take a lot of time and battery power every time the monitor is closed and opened again.

Before you make a static IP address, go to the router's webpage and make note of the pool of local IP addresses that the router might assign, the subnet mask, the router's LAN IP address (to be used as Default Gateway), and the DNS addresses the router is using. If you can't see the router's DNS address, use the router's IP address as the DNS server in Windows. If you choose to set up a static IP, you won't need to "ipconfig /renew".

By default, Windows XP does not like to connect to wireless access points which are not encrypted / secure. If you haven't encrypted your router, try doing that.

Check for product updates on your operating system, laptop, wireless card, and router.

Take a few extra steps to minimize electromagnetic interference by turning off ceiling/box fans, not using the microwave, etc. for a few minutes just to see what happens.

Try hooking up the laptop via ethernet cables instead of wires to further diagnose where the problem is.

If you have the laptop rescue disk, try reinstalling drivers for everything network related.

Attempt to connect to a public wireless network and see what happens.

Are you using a T4x series Thinkpad? These are known to have problems if you are using IBM Access Connections to manage your network connections.

You can get XP to take over by right clicking that Network Connection -> Properties -> Wireless Networks and enabling the "Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings" checkbox.

Hope that helps...

Related question - shout me down if I'm hijacking this thread to too great a degree:

On a WinXP laptop running with a Linksys 802.11b card, I have the Linksys connection manager running. It doesn't get along well with the native WinXP wireless connection manager - frequently one or the other (usually XP) claims there is no network connection even though I can surf, print, etc. satisfactorily. At other times they both are happy.

I like the flexibility of the Linksys manager and would like to disable or turn off the WinXP connection manager. But disabling the WinXP icon causes the card to shut down so it's not the right solution.

Is there an easy way to get these two utilities playing together nicely or a way to turn off the WinXP wireless connection config utility? Sorry that I'm not using the right terms - that PC is at home and I'm at work.

The XP Service is called "Wireless Zero Configuration" You can try to disable this service and see if your software will manage the configuration. This service is the source of many problems - in XP Service Pack 2 MS is going to make changes that *should* make it play nicer with 3rd party software - should know very soon.

Good luck,

Bruce

Inkoherent,

Are you sure that the Alcatel is a B?

The onboard intel 2100 3B mini PCI adapter chipset has a known problem with 802.11G routers speaking B. I'm not sure that it's been documented, but my sources say it's an ongoing problem.

I have done a driver upgrade and still been unable to get it to work properly on my X31.

Also, I strongly recommend against the IBM Access s/w package for my clients, and have found PCTel's Segue vastly better, though it is a little disconcerting on XP the way that it hijacks XPs wireless network management package.

hope that helps.

-remy

Is there an easy way to get these two utilities playing together nicely or a way to turn off the WinXP wireless connection config utility? Sorry that I'm not using the right terms - that PC is at home and I'm at work.

pdhenry,
I don't have an XP machine in fornt of me right now, but you can go somewhere into your configurations and uncheck the box that says "let windows manage my wireless connections"

-Remy

Hmm... Sounds more like a problem in the Alacatel. I imagine it's one of the speedtouch models?

Try disabling DHCP on your laptop and just setting it up with a static IP (pick the one it normally gets assigned) and then call us back :)

you should be able to setup the router, to assign the same IP to your laptop when it logs in. You should see this in the configuration settings for the router. Once that is cleared up, reboot the router, and then setup your laptop wireless connection with that exact IP.

that should make assignment very easy and the same everytime. Only thing you will have to remember is when roaming, and sniffing for other AP's, you will need to switch back to DHCP.

Now that you say it is a T4x, you might upgrade the access connections if you haven't done it already, and the driver for your wireless card.

DO THE CARD FIRST, THEN UPGRADE AC!! Not the other way around.

I don't have any problems at all with my router, other routers and the same LT.

Thanks guys, tried what I knew I could do correctly but still no luck. I called the ISP which supplied the box (yes, it's a B machine not G) and they will try to come take a look.

I meant to say that I tried both standby and hibernation and I still have the same problem of having to do a manual repair/release each time. Going to try to out in a PCMCIA card to see if the problem goes away.

Thanks again everyone, will keep you posted.

PS. And FWIW, machine in question is a T40, but I'm not using Access Connections since it doesn't seem to work well. That's for another story I guess.

Thanks guys, tried what I knew I could do correctly but still no luck. I called the ISP which supplied the box (yes, it's a B machine not G) and they will try to come take a look.

I meant to say that I tried both standby and hibernation and I still have the same problem of having to do a manual repair/release each time. Going to try to out in a PCMCIA card to see if the problem goes away.

Thanks again everyone, will keep you posted.

PS. And FWIW, machine in question is a T40, but I'm not using Access Connections since it doesn't seem to work well. That's for another story I guess.

that will at least let you know if it is a nic card problem ,or DHCP. OR at least help narrow it down.

pdhenry,
I don't have an XP machine in fornt of me right now, but you can go somewhere into your configurations and uncheck the box that says "let windows manage my wireless connections"

-RemyThat's it. It's in Wireless Network Connection Properties under the Wireless Networks tab. "Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings" should be cleared if you're using third-party wireless networking software. By default it's checked.

Thanks --

PDH

That's it. It's in Wireless Network Connection Properties under the Wireless Networks tab. "Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings" should be cleared if you're using third-party wireless networking software. By default it's checked.

Or you can shut it off completely in Services...as BruceWG suggested earlier.

I also have a T40 with XP Pro and recently used Access IBM and the IBM Update Connector to get the latest bug fixes and there is one for WiFi. That said, I'll generally use the manager that comes with the NIC card. Yet I've never had a problem with DHCP. I have a Speedtouch 609 DSL router at home and I've used Wifi at dozens of hotspot and corporate locations.

shut it off completely in Services...Where is Services?

Where is Services?

Control panel, administrative tools