Wireless only connects after Ethernet cable connection

[Sammy2]

Hi,

There's home wireless connection that my laptop won't connect to on its own. This wireless connects after the laptop has been connected to the router via the Ethernet cable, and stays connected with the cable unplugged until it drops (it's normal for my connection to drop sometimes), and then won't reconnect by itself again.

My wireless has wpa2-psk. OS is Vista.

Thank you.

 

[TheHawk]

Hey Sammy2. I assume your machine connected before with no connection issues.
Which Vista are you using,32 or 64 bit, and what Service Pack level is it on?
Do you have and use a good Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware cleaner?
When you lose your connection, is the Internet and wireless l.e.d.'s on the router still on?
Are there any other pc's that connect to this network?
When you state it won't connect again automatically, what do you do to get an Internet connection again?

 

[Sammy2]

Hi, thank you for the reply.

This machine is foreign and preowned, so not sure. However it connects to unsecured paid for wifi without any problems by itself.

Vista is 32bit. Don't know where to check the type of service pack.


The antivirus is AVG.

The led remains on and the same wireless appears in the search, but it won't reconnect automatically.

There is another laptop connected without a problem.

In order to connect again - I need to connect the laptop via the Ethernet to the router again and the wireless stays on until it drops again.

The problem is that the wireless will only connect when the Ethernet cable is used, but not by itself. Although if it's connected it works fine. I will try to update the drivers in the device manager and see if it helps.

Thank you.

Normally, if the internet doesn't reconnect aut. for me, I'd connect manually on 'connect to a network' window. When I try with this machine it says windows cannot connect to the wireless in q. Then ' diagnose the problem' option comes up, after clicking on that it says >“ wireless association failed due to an unknown reason“

 

[TheHawk]

Right click on My Computer and go to Properties, you should see the Service Pack (SP) level. Vista should be at SP2.
To me, it sounds like a problem in either the Vista software or the wireless driver if another pc stays connected at the same time.

Can't figure out yet why a temp Ethernet connection enables a wireless connection, even though it's temporary.

 

[Sammy2]

It's sp2. The HD, wireless card and cpu were removed from a different laptop that connected to the same network fine. Current laptop previously had xp HD and had the same connection issue. What could it be?

 

[TheHawk]

Critical info. so,the current HD which is a 32bit version of Vista SP2 in this system came from another laptop. So now, you have an older pc (originally had XP) now using a newer OS (Vista). You have to know if there are Vista drivers available for this older pc,( not likely) not only for the motherboard components, but for any hardware added later. Did this Vista software come with a DVD, and if it did, did it have the name of the pc manufacturer on it, or just a Windows Vista title?. The problem as I see it is the potential problem of incompatabilities of older hardware ( this problem pc) with a newer OS (Vista) with the correct drivers not installed (or available), plus the fact that the Vista OS (if on a disk), may be OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), meaning it is made for the original pc it came installed on and not another pc.
I myself would try to locate a retail Win XP disk (could be difficult), or maybe someone that has a multi-user license XP disk you could use to format and install on this drive. I would download the drivers for the pc from the manufacturers web site and install the drivers. I remember this scenario from many years ago when my cousin installed a copy of XP on an older machine from the Win98 days. I had to reinstall Win98 to get it back to normal for her. I don't know if your wireless router is secured, but if you had connection issues when this pc had the XP drive, depending on it's age and the type of wireless encryption (WEP or WPA/2) you router is set for and the Service Pack level of the XP OS, there could have been compatability issues since I believe the earlier versions of XP didn't support WPA encryption, if memory serves.