WiFi Shuts Down

[OldGuy]

Old HP laptop. Win XP Pro with all updates.
At startup and hot reboot the WiFi comes up and always shows the WiFi
list but does not always automatically connect the "Automatic"
(default) WiFi. Sometimes I just have to click connect and other times
it automatically does the connect.

Then after some time all WiFi-s vanish from the list and it says it
cannot find a WiFi. If I reboot I get the list of WiFi-s back and can
click on the one I use and make a connection. This is a hot reboot in
that the laptop does not have power turned off on a restart or for only
a second or so if I do a shutdown and turn it back on. Either way the
WiFi list comes back and I can use it. So I do not think it is a
temperature related problem.

I have no other problems with the laptop.
Now running MS Security Essentials and just previously Avast with no
problems. Same WiFi problem with either.

Any suggestions on what
1) to look for?
2) what to try?

TIA

 

[OldGuy]

Possibly (with low emphasis) this could be a failing WiFi adapter.

What is the WiFi chip-set/mini-PCI module ?

What's best to check that with?

 

[Stef]

Old HP laptop. Win XP Pro with all updates.
At startup and hot reboot the WiFi comes up and always shows the WiFi
list but does not always automatically connect the "Automatic"
(default) WiFi. Sometimes I just have to click connect and other times
it automatically does the connect.

Then after some time all WiFi-s vanish from the list and it says it
cannot find a WiFi. If I reboot I get the list of WiFi-s back and can
click on the one I use and make a connection. This is a hot reboot in
that the laptop does not have power turned off on a restart or for only
a second or so if I do a shutdown and turn it back on. Either way the
WiFi list comes back and I can use it. So I do not think it is a
temperature related problem.

I have no other problems with the laptop.
Now running MS Security Essentials and just previously Avast with no
problems. Same WiFi problem with either.

Any suggestions on what
1) to look for?
2) what to try?

Suggest you check your wifi's power management settings.

I had a similar problem with a Thinkpad T61. Traced the problem to
Lenovo's Think Vantage Power Management. Fix was: uninstall Think
Vantage Power Management and use XP's, and set wifi not to turn off.
Worked fine after that.

Stef

 

[Paul]

Suggest you check your wifi's power management settings.

I had a similar problem with a Thinkpad T61. Traced the problem to
Lenovo's Think Vantage Power Management. Fix was: uninstall Think
Vantage Power Management and use XP's, and set wifi not to turn off.
Worked fine after that.

Stef

You can also check Device Manager, and see if the power setting
there allows the device to "go to sleep" or not. Do Properties
on the Wifi adapter, and look for a tick box like this, and untick it.
Just as a test.

"Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"

Paul

 

[OldGuy]

OldGuy wrote :

Old HP laptop. Win XP Pro with all updates.
At startup and hot reboot the WiFi comes up and always shows the WiFi list
but does not always automatically connect the "Automatic" (default) WiFi.
Sometimes I just have to click connect and other times it automatically does
the connect.

Then after some time all WiFi-s vanish from the list and it says it cannot
find a WiFi. If I reboot I get the list of WiFi-s back and can click on the
one I use and make a connection. This is a hot reboot in that the laptop
does not have power turned off on a restart or for only a second or so if I
do a shutdown and turn it back on. Either way the WiFi list comes back and I
can use it. So I do not think it is a temperature related problem.

I have no other problems with the laptop.
Now running MS Security Essentials and just previously Avast with no
problems. Same WiFi problem with either.

Any suggestions on what
1) to look for?
2) what to try?

TIA

I checked all suggested and found no problems.
All WiFi access points, my router and the neighbor's vanished and I had
a blank list.
After playing with settings I found a "Repair" button and clicked it.
I had the Network Connections open at the time and the not connected
changed to connected and I had WiFi access points (including my router)
and Internet access.

But why does this need "Repair".
Is there something corrupting the WiFi access that needs constant
"Repair"?

What can I look at now?
Is there some place I can look to find out what was "repaired"?

 

[Paul]

OldGuy wrote :

I checked all suggested and found no problems.
All WiFi access points, my router and the neighbor's vanished and I had
a blank list.
After playing with settings I found a "Repair" button and clicked it.
I had the Network Connections open at the time and the not connected
changed to connected and I had WiFi access points (including my router)
and Internet access.

But why does this need "Repair".
Is there something corrupting the WiFi access that needs constant "Repair"?

What can I look at now?
Is there some place I can look to find out what was "repaired"?

I couldn't find info on a log file specifically for the repair.

The repair procedure is described here. I suspect the
description isn't really complete. Because there isn't enough
here to repair anything

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456996.aspx

"The Repair link initiates six of the most common
troubleshooting steps that support professionals generally
ask customers to perform when starting to diagnose a problem.

These steps are shown below in the order that they are initiated:

Broadcast DHCP Lease Renew
Flush ARP cache [Address Resolution Protocol]
Nbtstat –R [clears the NetBIOS name cache]
Nbtstat -RR [re-registering the machines names with a WINS server]
Flush DNS cache
Register DNS name [re-registering... with a Dynamic DNS server]
"

Before trying a repair, you could run this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894568

"netsh ras set tra * ena [ Netsh ras set tracing * enabled ]
[ probably as administrator, in cmd]

Reproduce the problem

netsh ras set tra * dis [ Netsh ras set tracing * disabled ]

The logs will be at %windir%\tracing

Wzctrace.log
Eapol.log
Rastls.log
Wzcdlg.log
Xmlprovi.log
Netman.log
Netshell.log
"

So that generates some logs. You could also try Event Viewer,
and see if a log entry was dropped in there.

That's all I could find so far.

Paul

 

[dadiOH]

Old HP laptop. Win XP Pro with all updates.
At startup and hot reboot the WiFi comes up and always shows the
WiFi list but does not always automatically connect the "Automatic"
(default) WiFi. Sometimes I just have to click connect and other
times it automatically does the connect.

Then after some time all WiFi-s vanish from the list and it says it
cannot find a WiFi. If I reboot I get the list of WiFi-s back and
can click on the one I use and make a connection. This is a hot
reboot in that the laptop does not have power turned off on a
restart or for only a second or so if I do a shutdown and turn it
back on. Either way the WiFi list comes back and I can use it. So
I do not think it is a temperature related problem.

I have no other problems with the laptop.
Now running MS Security Essentials and just previously Avast with no
problems. Same WiFi problem with either.

Any suggestions on what
1) to look for?
2) what to try?

DSL modem? Turn it off for 15-20 seconds then turn it back on and let it
acquire a new lease.

If still no joy, repeat but turn off router too.

If still no joy turn off both and shut down (turn off, not reboot). Wait
15-20 seconds, turn on modem and router, boot.



--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Taxes out of hand? Maybe just ready for a change?
Check it out... http://www.floridaloghouse.net

 

[OldGuy]

dadiOH brought next idea :

DSL modem? Turn it off for 15-20 seconds then turn it back on and let it
acquire a new lease.

If still no joy, repeat but turn off router too.

If still no joy turn off both and shut down (turn off, not reboot). Wait
15-20 seconds, turn on modem and router, boot.

Other WiFi devices are not having any problems, just this one HP
laptop.

 

[OldGuy]

One last time...
What is the WiFi chip-set/mini-PCI module ?

Did not have time until now to figure that out.

Network Adapters
1394 Net Adapter
LAN Express 802.11 PCI Adapter
Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

HP Laptop.
zt1190

 

[Paul]

Did not have time until now to figure that out.

Network Adapters
1394 Net Adapter
LAN Express 802.11 PCI Adapter
Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

HP Laptop.
zt1190

It looks to be some flavor of Intersil Prism. A previous discussion
thread, claims it supports WEP but not WPA.

"LAN Express IEEE 802.11 Driver for Microsoft Windows XP"

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...us&dlc=en&lc=en&os=228&product=73255&sw_lang=

[Vendor]
%LEX_PCMCIA5V.DeviceDesc% = LEX_PCMCIA5V, PCMCIA\LAN-Express_PC_CARD-HFA384X/IEEE-2610
%LEX_PCMCIA3V.DeviceDesc% = LEX_PCMCIA3V, PCMCIA\LAN-Express_PC_CARD-HFA384X/IEEE-9BF0
%LEX_PCMCIA3842.DeviceDesc%= LEX_PCMCIA3842, PCMCIA\LAN-Express_PC_CARD-HFA3842/IEEE-A874
%LEX_PCMCIA425V.DeviceDesc%= LEX_PCMCIA425V, PCMCIA\LAN-Express_PC_CARD-HFA3842/IEEE-C295
%LEX_PCMCIA3V.DeviceDesc% = LEX_INTERSIL7, PCMCIA\LAN-EXPRESS-HFA384X/IEEE-C231
%LEX_PCI.DeviceDesc% = LEX_PCI_04, PCI\VEN_1260&DEV_3873&SUBSYS_02001468

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

1260 Intersil Corporation
3872 ISL3872 [Prism 3]
1468 0202 LAN-Express IEEE 802.11b Wireless LAN
3873 ISL3874 [Prism 2.5]/ISL3872 [Prism 3]
10cf 1169 MBH7WM01-8734 802.11b Wireless Mini PCI Card [ISL3874]

Paul

 

[OldGuy]

Network Adapters

1394 Net Adapter
LAN Express 802.11 PCI Adapter
Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

HP Laptop.
zt1190

Pavillion? yes.
Yes Pavillion zt1190 per the label on the front of the laptop.

WEP? yes.
yes it is WEP only. The router used is an AMPED R20000G that has a
Guest WiFi that is set for WEP using the long fixed length password.
Main access is WPA etc. Signal strength to this laptop is three bars.
When laptop is working it downloads large files very quickly i.e. seems
to be few transmission errors.

Installed driver?
The LAN Express driver shows as 1.7.29.20118.
I downloaded the driver for a look see. Same version.
Did not install as was the same version.

 

[OldGuy]

Did you do what I suggested minus updating the NIC software ?

If you mean uninstalling, taking out the NIC etc, then no. kind of
scary.
What would that do? I need a little understanding to work up the
courage to unscrew things etc.