[Closed] IT Help Please - Operating Systems

Yes

how far apart are the wireless router and the computer? If they're in the same room, have you considered using a Cat5 cable? Cheaper than buying a copy of Windows that may or may not install correctly.

a couple of years ago, fed up of having wireless connectivity issues on both my Vista machine and mrs_drummer's Win7 machine, we opted to have the house cabled. 3 long point-to-point cable runs, one end of each one being by the router, the other ends in the rooms where there are / are likely to be computers. Wall mounted RJ45 sockets, bingo structured cabling for the house and no more connectivity issues. £150

Router in the hall, it's a shared laptop between my folks so I guess it gets used in various rooms.

Not sure they'd go for having the house done, they're casual users at best. Take your point though, thinking of doing something similar at ours.

Jimmy, cheers 🙂

Use inssider and make sure the router isn't using the same frequency as your neighbours

Set it to g rather than b/g/n or fix it on n if you can

Update the firmware on the router

Then mess around with the OS if need be but really I would imagine that is the last source of the problem.

Edit: in retrospect I do remember once where the above stuff didn't fix it. Twas a crappy dlink router. Changed for another make and problem went away

Thanks Leffeboy, I won't go into the long and tedious details of it all but I've tried just about everything I know.

His laptop will connect to both mine and my brothers Netgear's (at different addresses) so it would suggest the router - yet other devices can see and connect to it fine.

I have a spare Netgear to try out over the weekend, if that doesn't do it then at least I know the router isn't at fault.

Had read a fair bit over the last week regarding Vista and WiFi issues, hence the last resort of an upgrade...

TBH,

It's a worthy upgrade regardless and I can't see why it wouldn't work.

Know any students? http://www.software4students.co.uk/Windows_7-software.aspx

Also, what Leffe said.

Faffed around with router settings, wireless adaptor settings, infinte amounts of drivers followed by restarts, ipconfig renew, flush dns etc.

(Ok, didn't do the firmware)

Scan doesn't reveal any other networks nearby so doubt it's a frequency conflict.

Followed lots of forum advice, none of which appeared conclusive and didn't work in this case either.

Really stumped on this one!

whats the problem? does the wifi drop out completely (signal drops to 0) or do web pages fail to load etc?

It won't connect, returns "unidentified network".

Tried pinging but I get an error code 1231

I used to get similar issues when out on customer sites or in some hotels/public wifi spots.

I think it was the process in this article that did the trick and it won't do any harm to try:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

Failing that upgrade to Windows 7 and you'll probably get a performance improvement in the process anyway.

yet other devices can see and connect to it fine

Yep, had that when several machines can connect but one wouldn't. Changing the router still fixed it.

However, other things to try:

Switch off all authentication (temporarily of course)
Use a fixed IP address on the lappy (the DHCP part sometimes fails)
Don't put the lappy right next to the router when debugging - being too close will make it fail sometimes as well
Switch off any antivirus/firewall on the lappy. It is possible it has been told to reject this network

But as Cougar says - Win7 is still a good upgrade.

Use a powerline device. Very simple networking as long as the two endpoints are on the same ring main. This one even has a wlan range extender, the prices seem to be coming don the last few weeks.

My brother has one of these and is very happy, faster network and no additional wires.

[url= http://www.maplin.co.uk/edimax-200mbps-powerline-kit-with-pass-through-socket-and-n150-range-extender-599963 ]Edimax Powerline at Maplins[/url]

Cheers guys, will try the above out before I switch the router.

The other option might be to disable IPv6 (enabled by default on vista but doesn't work with some routers)

instructions nicked from google and dont have vista to hand to check
1. Go to Control panel.

2. Go to Network and Sharing Centre.

3. Connection click on view status, then Properties.

4. Untick IPV6.

5. Click OK.

StuF - already tried that, didn't work.

Thanks though, I'm grateful for any suggestions!

I reckon it might be either weak signal, or clashing channels with the neighbours (how many routers use the same channel as their default??)

IPv6 - got nowt to do with it..

And who suggested the laptop too close to the router would make it fail LOL best thing I've heard today!!

It won't connect, returns "unidentified network".

Make sure you've got the latest drivers for the WiFi adapter.

Try disabling Bonjour in Services if it's running - it's known to cause this.

And who suggested the laptop too close to the router would make it fail LOL best thing I've heard today!!

It was me and it's true or at least to be specific I have had that problem with laptops in the past and moving them a meter two away has solved the problem. It may not generalise to every router/laptop combination though

It's not so much "move it away" as "move it elsewhere" - WiFi can suffer from dead spots.

I used to get similar issues when out on customer sites or in some hotels/public wifi spots.

I think it was the process in this article that did the trick and it won't do any harm to try:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

Chaos wins!

Excellent job sir many thanks 🙂

Excellent. Love a happy ending 🙂

Does that mean you didn't try this earlier though 😉

Use a fixed IP address on the lappy (the DHCP part sometimes fails)

edit - oops, just spotted chaos got in there first

Was next on my list!

Cheers for all the help 🙂

Wins

These IT support threads do seem a bit competitive sometimes!