R
Russ Sonnenschein
I am posting this to help others who may have had the same problem. Like
many I too would lose my wireless internet connection every 1 to 5 minutes.
My solution is at the end.
Setup:
My setup was between two XP machines (one XP Pro the other XP Home) using a
peer-to-peer (ad hoc) wireless network setting with two identical USB
802.11b (NetGear MA101) access points. On one machine (XP Pro) I "bridged"
the wireless connection to a hardwired LinkSys 4 port router using XP. The
connection signal was very strong between the two access points. Both
machines were set to use DHCP for getting an IP address. All software and
associate firmware was up to date with all the latest official
releases/service packs/patches as of 7/8/2004.
Problem:
After limited web browsing the remote machine (the one with only a wireless
connection) would fail to browse pages. Disabling or repairing the
connection would get things to work again for a few minutes and then I'd
repeat the process. However acessing shared folders across the network tot
not seem to exhibit the same problem!?!?
Actually the machines had worked fine for a year or so, but I now realize
that the problems started only after a failed attempt to upgrade to a faster
Microsoft 802.11g product. Because of how the problem machine is used
(mostly as a media player) it was unclear for a long time that I had a
problem. More on this below.
Attempted solutions:
I tried all the advice that I found on the net:
(1) Made sure that the Enable IEE 802.1x authentication was turned
off--not really even an option for peer to peer (ah hoc) networks.
(2) Made sure the power management on the networking devices (Allow the
computer to turn off this device) was unchecked.
(3) Tried disabling the unchecking "Use Windows to configure my wireless
settings" and using the NetGear software. (Did not work and set back)
(4) Set advanced setting to computer-to-computer (ad hoc) networks only
and made sure automatically connect to non-preferred networks was unchecked.
(5) Tried to stop the Wireless Zero Configuration service (Did not work
and set back on.)
Solution:
I finally traced the problem down to the "Microsoft Broadband Utility" which
happened to be installed on both machines. The software came with a prior
attempt to get my networks to work with a Microsoft 802.11g access
point/router/firewall. I had returned that product for similar reasons
before but did not uninstall the client software. I even spent hours on the
phone with Microsoft trying to get that product to work with different
computers...and they eventually told me to just return the product. Of
course I now believe that the root cause was the same problem.
Once I uninstalled the "Microsoft Broadband Utility" from both machines my
problem went away.
-Russell Sonnenschein
many I too would lose my wireless internet connection every 1 to 5 minutes.
My solution is at the end.
Setup:
My setup was between two XP machines (one XP Pro the other XP Home) using a
peer-to-peer (ad hoc) wireless network setting with two identical USB
802.11b (NetGear MA101) access points. On one machine (XP Pro) I "bridged"
the wireless connection to a hardwired LinkSys 4 port router using XP. The
connection signal was very strong between the two access points. Both
machines were set to use DHCP for getting an IP address. All software and
associate firmware was up to date with all the latest official
releases/service packs/patches as of 7/8/2004.
Problem:
After limited web browsing the remote machine (the one with only a wireless
connection) would fail to browse pages. Disabling or repairing the
connection would get things to work again for a few minutes and then I'd
repeat the process. However acessing shared folders across the network tot
not seem to exhibit the same problem!?!?
Actually the machines had worked fine for a year or so, but I now realize
that the problems started only after a failed attempt to upgrade to a faster
Microsoft 802.11g product. Because of how the problem machine is used
(mostly as a media player) it was unclear for a long time that I had a
problem. More on this below.
Attempted solutions:
I tried all the advice that I found on the net:
(1) Made sure that the Enable IEE 802.1x authentication was turned
off--not really even an option for peer to peer (ah hoc) networks.
(2) Made sure the power management on the networking devices (Allow the
computer to turn off this device) was unchecked.
(3) Tried disabling the unchecking "Use Windows to configure my wireless
settings" and using the NetGear software. (Did not work and set back)
(4) Set advanced setting to computer-to-computer (ad hoc) networks only
and made sure automatically connect to non-preferred networks was unchecked.
(5) Tried to stop the Wireless Zero Configuration service (Did not work
and set back on.)
Solution:
I finally traced the problem down to the "Microsoft Broadband Utility" which
happened to be installed on both machines. The software came with a prior
attempt to get my networks to work with a Microsoft 802.11g access
point/router/firewall. I had returned that product for similar reasons
before but did not uninstall the client software. I even spent hours on the
phone with Microsoft trying to get that product to work with different
computers...and they eventually told me to just return the product. Of
course I now believe that the root cause was the same problem.
Once I uninstalled the "Microsoft Broadband Utility" from both machines my
problem went away.
-Russell Sonnenschein