Wireless Connection - XP?

[wjzog]

Hopefully this is a simple fix.

A friend just got broadband (cable) and linksys wireless, but having problems. His XP Laptop sees the wireless network, but won't log on. I got on right away with Win2000 laptop. He can get on wired. Just not wireless.

I shut off the Windows firewall, and doesn't have any other firewalls on the laptop. No security on the router for now.

Tried running the wizard to set up a home network, didn't help.

What am I missing here?

Many thanks--

 

[fishhookz]

The linksys manual explains how to do it properly. Follow it through.

 

[StormBringer]

first, go to device manager and remove the mac bridge mini-port that the network wizard likely created(network wizard is junk) then go update the firmware on the router. If the router, especially if the card is a broadcom based card). Even if the router was just bought yesterday, it is likely a few firmware versions behind the current version.
If the card is intel, might need to increase the power management settings.

 

[jbrown456]

Well Would You Please Post And Say If This Worked Or Not!

 

[StormBringer]

There might be more things you could try, but since you only give Linksys as the type of router and give no model info and no info about the card itself, its hard to give more than general info on what you might try.

A couple of good examples of this would be if you had a Dell with a TM1350 card(broadcom based) and a Linksys wrt54g router, I could assure you that you'd need to first update the firmware to a 3.0 or newer version for it to work properly, 3.03.6 is the newest.
If it is a Linksys befw11s4 and an Intel card, you'd need to not only update the firmware but also set the TX rate to 1-2, change Authentication to "open" and set the preamble to "long".

 

[wjzog]

Thanks, guys. Here's more detail.

The laptop is an IBM, and the wireless card is Intel Pro/wireless 2200BG. The Linksys router is a WRT 54G. SO yes, probably the firmware update is in order.

The part that throws me is that my laptop signs on automatically right out of the box, but this other laptop has so much trouble.

Again, thanks for the help!

 

[StormBringer]

thats really odd that a Win2k machine automatically connects to a wireless network when usually you'd have to manually configure it since 2K has no resident support for wireless(until you add SP4 anyway) and you have to use the card's utility to manually enter the SSID.

With XP, you simply view available networks and click the one you are wanting to connect to, then click connect. Sometimes though, the Intel Proset and Windows XP's WZC will conflict, so you have to use one or the other. Many people will recommend you disable WZC and use the card utility, but I recommend the opposite unless you need the utility features since the utility uses more system resources. If you opt to use wzc, remove proset for wireless from Add/Remove programs. If you opt to use the proset, disable wzc from Services (Start>Run>services.msc, look for Wireless Zero Configuration and set it to Stopped and Disabled)

The Intel 2200 also has power management features which allow it to cut its power in order to save battery. This is part of Centrino and doesn't work like it is marketed, basically, the power management features make it weaker than normal cards unless those features are disabled. Make sure you turn the power settings to maximum in the properties of the driver.

 

[russ]

The Intel 2200 also has power management features which allow it to cut its power in order to save battery. This is part of Centrino and doesn't work like it is marketed, basically, the power management features make it weaker than normal cards unless those features are disabled. Make sure you turn the power settings to maximum in the properties of the driver.
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The above statement by StormBringer is a must for Most people that have this 2200 wifi. It fixed all of my problems. Which were systematically loosing signals and not able to logon period.