Wireless connection drops and won't reconnect after SP3

[Marty]

Hi all,

Hope this is the right place for help on this.
Since installing SP3 on XP my wireless connection randomly drops. I can't
pinpoint exactly what causes it to happen/triggers it
but the only fix I know of is simply to reboot.
When it happens I can still see the router but when clicking on connect it
just stays on connecting for ages and never connects.
None of the other devices have any problems with the router and there is
another laptop in the house, same make and model but on
XP SP2 and that doesn't lose connection.
The wireless adaptor is a Prism 802.11g Mini PCI. I've installed the latest
drivers I can find and no difference.
I've tried restarting a number of services (Wireless Zero etc.) and still
cannot restore the connection.
I've also tried a suggested fix of resetting the Winsock and that didn't
work.
I checked in Event Viewer and found the following:

Event ID 4202:
The system detected that network adapter PRISM...Wireless Adapter - Packet
Scheduler Miniport was disconnected from the network, and the adapter's
network configuration has been released. If the network adapter was not
disconnected, this may indicate that it has malfunctioned. Please contact
your vendor for updated drivers.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Hi all,

Hope this is the right place for help on this.
Since installing SP3 on XP my wireless connection randomly drops. I
can't pinpoint exactly what causes it to happen/triggers it
but the only fix I know of is simply to reboot.
When it happens I can still see the router but when clicking on
connect it just stays on connecting for ages and never connects.
None of the other devices have any problems with the router and
there is another laptop in the house, same make and model but on
XP SP2 and that doesn't lose connection.
The wireless adaptor is a Prism 802.11g Mini PCI. I've installed
the latest drivers I can find and no difference.
I've tried restarting a number of services (Wireless Zero etc.) and
still cannot restore the connection.
I've also tried a suggested fix of resetting the Winsock and that
didn't work.
I checked in Event Viewer and found the following:

Event ID 4202:
The system detected that network adapter PRISM...Wireless Adapter -
Packet Scheduler Miniport was disconnected from the network, and
the adapter's network configuration has been released. If the
network adapter was not disconnected, this may indicate that it has
malfunctioned. Please contact your vendor for updated drivers.

Download and install the latest hardware driver for your wireless device
straight from the manufacturer's support page.

 

[Marty]

Hi Shenan,

Thanks for your response. I've got the latest driver from the laptop
manufacturer's website. I'm having trouble finding a newer one (it's about
4-5 years old) as
I think the manufacturer of the wireless card doesn't exist any more or was
taken over and no further support was provided.
I'm not sure what to do other than change the mini PCI card or roll back to
SP2.
I noticed frequent IPSEC service events and wondered about the SP3 updates
for both that and "Black hole" router detection.

 

[Daave]

Hi all,

Hope this is the right place for help on this.
Since installing SP3 on XP my wireless connection randomly drops. I
can't pinpoint exactly what causes it to happen/triggers it
but the only fix I know of is simply to reboot.
When it happens I can still see the router but when clicking on
connect it just stays on connecting for ages and never connects.
None of the other devices have any problems with the router and there
is another laptop in the house, same make and model but on
XP SP2 and that doesn't lose connection.
The wireless adaptor is a Prism 802.11g Mini PCI. I've installed the
latest drivers I can find and no difference.
I've tried restarting a number of services (Wireless Zero etc.) and
still cannot restore the connection.
I've also tried a suggested fix of resetting the Winsock and that
didn't work.
I checked in Event Viewer and found the following:

Event ID 4202:
The system detected that network adapter PRISM...Wireless Adapter -
Packet Scheduler Miniport was disconnected from the network, and the
adapter's network configuration has been released. If the network
adapter was not disconnected, this may indicate that it has
malfunctioned. Please contact your vendor for updated drivers.

Did you try the recommended workaround from this page?:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951447

 

[Marty]

Many thanks Daave, I didn't know about that one.
I just had a look and followed the instructions but got stuck as I didn't
have a power management tab
when I clicked on configure for the wireless connection? Any ideas?
I checked my wired connection and there wasn't a power management tab there
either?

 

[Daave]

Many thanks Daave, I didn't know about that one.
I just had a look and followed the instructions but got stuck as I
didn't have a power management tab
when I clicked on configure for the wireless connection? Any ideas?
I checked my wired connection and there wasn't a power management tab
there either?

Sorry, Marty. I just tried the same thing with my friend's laptop (also
running SP3), and there's no Power Management tab there, either. I'm not
sure if SP3 broke something or if these two devices simply don't support
power management. I understand yours is older and you're certain you
have the latest driver for it. I assume that if you revert to SP2, your
problem will go away, so perhaps until there is a solution, that might
be what you need to do for the next several months. If the problem
persists in SP2, I would say your device is bad.

If you revert to SP2, I'd be curious to see if you get the Power
Management tab. But since that's a hassle and there's a chance that
someone else might have the solution, I wouldn't go out of my way to
uninstall SP3 right away.

 

[Marty]

Thanks for having a look Daave. I'm having trouble finding any drivers for
my wireless card later than 2003/2004. It's
made by Prism which I think was owned by Intersil, then sold to Globespan
Virata which merged with Conexant. I've
looked into all three companies and can't find any drivers at all.
My girlfriend has the same model of laptop on SP2 and doesn't have any
problems. I didn't have any problems when using
SP1 or SP2.
I'll have a think about whether to revert to SP2 as it's not that often it
happens. I would be happy if I could at least find a
workaround that didn't involve rebooting the laptop each time it happens
(e.g. restarting a service, reset winsock/tcpip etc).