wifi card loses connection

[zlim]

My wifi card has started losing the internet connection, intermittently. It sometimes loses connection to the router but most often it's just the internet. I'm on Channel 1, my phones are 900MHz and the microwave isn't on. The signals and connectivity are above 75% and still it occurs.Point me to some settings I can look at - such as powering down after a certain period of inactivity. (I'm not even sure if that's an option).

[maggie]

You could check in Device Manager uncheck any power saving on the card properties. Make sure you have the latest drivers and firmware for the card and router. If you are using windows to configure the network make sure WZC in started and on automatic in Services. If you are using the card software to manage your network turn the WZC off and uncheck use windows in the wireless properties. You can't run them together. Also in the wireless properties uncheck authentication also, if you are using WPA I think it has to be checked. Maybe put the router higher or closer point the antennas around. Play around until you get a better signal. I have used Netstumbler to get the best signal. Not necessary really. Lots of things block the signal even metal ducting in the walls.

[zlim]

Thanks Temmu and maggie. I downloaded the Winsock fix (it happens on both partitions 2K and ME so I don't think that is the problem). But it's a handy file to have.I printed out where to look at settings. I did check Linksys site and I have the latest firmware BUT I do know at times, settings get changed (and not by me) so I want to go through them with a fine tooth comb. Linksys also recommends trying another channel. I'm currently on 1. The site says to try 1, 6 or 11. So after checking the settings and seeing what happens, I may try another channel to see if that is any better.I haven't moved the router since June so I don't think placement is the problem. I did turn off broadcast. I'm not sure if that would cause a problem.

[maggie]

If you are using Windows to configure the lan then broadcast the SSID. If it was working before and you have been messing with the ethernet card like uninstalling and replacing it go into safemode and see if there are any ghost installs from the card you have now and/or an older card. You might have to show hidden folders-click view on the toolbar. Remove all and disable them if you can't uninstall. Then reinstall the card when you get back to Windows.What brand and model are the Linksys Router and Ethernet card?

[zlim]

router: WRT54G wifi card: WPC54GI haven't ever used another card and I only installed this once.

[maggie]

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,113...+Windows+XP+SP2http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,113...+Windows+XP+SP2http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,112...+Windows+XP+SP2The newest drivers for your card are at least a year old. I know the router works because I use it. You have mentioned what you did in the past but nothing about, if anything that has been done, since this thread started. I'm tapped out.

[zlim]

maggie, thanks for the suggestions - I haven't had time to work on this because I was updating software to get my burner to work on the nb in question and I'm currently trading emails with SanDisk to try and figure out why one of two USB drives won't work on one of my 98SE computers. Both work fine on another 98SE.I know the router works and I know the wifi card works. There aren't any newer drivers despite the fact that they are older. I don't run XP on any of the 5 computers in the house. The wifi card is in a nb with ME and 2K which worked fine but now is starting to drop connections - that's what I was trying to figure out and you gave me settings to look at. I promise to do them (though it might not be for a few days). I do report back on my successes and failures so everyone can use the information for future problems.

[maggie]

Hopefully it isn't going out. I've had that happen twice. the first time I replaced the card and the second time it was leftover drivers from the old card. I couldn't get rid of it so I disabled it. My 3 com has been humming along for two years. The first card was a Linksys that my ISP had provided. Both wired. I keep an extra wireless card just in case. Couldn't stand putting my laptop on the wired again.

[zlim]

I enabled SSID broadcast. I'm sitting very close to the router so my signal and quality are both 100%. I decided to start by ruling out interference.Connected at 7:13, lost connection at 7:30, again at 7:36.I saw that Windows Explorer was listening on a port, so I removed that and SSDP services and rebooted.I got back on, let's say 7:40, connection dropped at 7:58, again at 8:05, and at 8:27. I'm losing connection to the router. I think I can rule out interference at the cause of the droppage. I may try to shut down a program at a time (ZA and ADMuncher) to see if either of this is creating a problem. As far as I could see there were no power-saving properties in the card and WZC doesn't apply to my OS. If the droppage was at a set interval, I might think it was a setting in windows.......3 hours later, while doing a search on what SSDP service is, I found this

On or about October 29, 2004 I started to get drop outs on DHCP and the system would recover.  After a few weeks of frutration I installed Zone Alarm to find that my PC is being used as a server by the "external community".  My PC actively trys to communicate with the internet through msmsg.exe, Explorer.exe with destination IPs, svchost.exe with source IPs, userinit.exe, etc.  I have all of this activity locked down at this point, but I do not  know how to identify and remove the software/program(s) that got installed on my PC.  One of the biggest offenders is msmsg.exe where if the PC is not connected to the internet, it will attempt at least 500 times to connect to the internet every hour at xx:57.  Right now is it continually "hammering" to get out with IP addresses! (it must be able to sense that an internet connection is active...).  You should also know that this all started on or about the time I upgraded the firmware on my Linksys BEFSX41 Firewall/router which doesn't seem to be doing its intended job...  Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Obviously October 29, 2004 is not the correct date but I copied exactly as the person posted because it sounds similar to to my dropouts!Source

[zlim]

Progress report:I downloaded sysinternals process explorer to see what in the world is running on ME. I discovered a few questionable processes. SSDP which appear in my ZA alerts, I discovered is associated with PnP. I went to Gibson's site, downloaded Unplug and discovered PnP was running! I know I turned this off. I guess MS changed this when I downloaded an update. Anyway that process is now history.

[maggie]

Did that help?

[zlim]

It's better. I still need to look at a few items.The 2K partition is loads better. I don't get the drops (of course it is Sunday afternoon and most folks are watching football, I suspect) and I don't have all the ZA alerts that I get on the ME side. Tomorrow night, I'll move the computer away from the router while I work on ME to see what else I need to kill. I have an article with the processes explained. I just have to search for it, LOL.******************************************************18 October: another exercise in futility. The Me part still lost access (87% and 93% shows) so I know it isn't the card - it has to be a service running and I still can't find my list.I got tired of playing around waiting for ME to find the router and/or internet so I rebooted and switched to 2K. This was even worse. It couldn't find the internet so I rebooted and it started loading pages. My home page is MyWay, which it found ok but it refused to connect to MyWay mail. I went to clear the cache and discovered I only had 1 item on the drop down Tools menu, Web Search. So ended tonight's experiment.I need to do some more searching and fix FF in 2K.I did resurrect an older PCMag article that had info about repairing the WinSock if your wifi card keeps losing it's connection. That will be the next thing I try.

[zlim]

temmu, I think you might be correct because I've just about ruled out everything else and I'm still losing connectivity.Here's what I've done (and I'm glad I had to dig deeper to look).1. I used Process Explorer from sysinternals to see all the running services and got rid of two questionable ones. (There is still one more Odyssey host that probably comes with my NIC that I have to see about).2. I studied the alerts in ZA and got those down. For some reason, my router wasn't in the trusted zone??? I know that when the Comcast tech was out to replace cable and test my modem and signal, he used this notebook to run some tests and he may have changed some settings.3. I completely removed the 900MHz phone from the room I'm in just to be doubly sure it wasn't creating interference. I also did not use the microwave so I can't blame the signal loss on that.Now I shall run the winsock fix and hope that solves the problem. Thanks everyone for patiently putting up with my trials and tribulations concerning routers and wireless connections.

[zlim]

Ran winsock fix and the problem persists. I was on ME last night for a few hours. Everything slow and dropped connections. I'm going to spend some time this week working on the 2K part. If I have the same problems, I'll assume the card is going bad and see if I can return it and get a replacement. (I'll look to see what the warranty period is).

[maggie]

There is a beta for your card on w2k . Got this off of microsoft.public.networking wireless link to the thread http://www.mcse.ms/message1186565.htmlftp://ftp.linksys.com/beta/wpc54g_beta_driver.zipThese drivers ended up working for me, but first I had to removed allother NICs in my system and disabled any onboard NICs in the bios. Then uninstalled and deleted any of the other drivers from my system. After that there was still some Odyssey client software on my machine. Uninstall this as well. Then I loaded the beta driver for the cardfirst in device manager, reboot and then I ran the beta driver setup. It worked !!!!Hopefully this will be of some use to you.

[zlim]

Thanks maggie. I may download it but hold off on installing. The other evening I used wifi on the 2K part and it behaved perfectly for a few hours! Then I switched to the ME side and it wouldn't work at all!!!I just read thru the thread - I'm pretty sure this might be the same beta driver I downloaded in June when I read about computers with a TI controller. This applied to me and that driver did not work. I ended up calling tech support and the gal had me remove it and use the driver on the CD and it worked with that.I'd love to get rid of 1 partion but some things work better in ME and others work better in 2K. If I could get everything working A-ok in 2K, I'd remove the ME partion and have a few less headaches.

[maggie]

I liked 2000, it is getting a little long on the tooth. I learned so much using it. It was easier to fix. I just made an ERD before I messed with anything. Whew used those a bunch. I do miss that now that I use XP Pro. There is system restore but that ERD was great.