Wireless Problem With Vista

[Andy Hauss]

Hi folks,

My Dad has an Acer laptop running Windows Vista. Tonight he
experienced a strange problem.

Now, his computer had this Acer preinstalled programme called eNet
Management which kept on disconnecting and reconnecting him and I had
to disable that. I am mentioning this as it might be important but I
am not sure.

Let's say we call our home network ANDY. When I go into the network
connections window it says the strength of the network ANDY is poor -
34% to be exact. I also see another network coming up called ANDY 2.
I have checked on my iMac and there is no computer network called ANDY
2 in our vacinity.

The interesting thing is that his computer reports the signal strength
of ANDY 2 to be excellent - 96% or something like that. However, when
we connect to ANDY 2 it then says the signal strength is 34% and the
signal strength of the first ANDY I talked about is now excellent and
at 96%! His connection doesn't appear to be dropping but I am just
curious as to the origin of the poor signal strength and also why his
computer is showing the home network twice. The network is password
protected and when I viewed the settings for both the ANDY networks
they were exactly the same and had the same password........

Any help would be appreciated!

Andy.

 

[+Bob+]

Hi folks,

My Dad has an Acer laptop running Windows Vista. Tonight he
experienced a strange problem.

Now, his computer had this Acer preinstalled programme called eNet
Management which kept on disconnecting and reconnecting him and I had
to disable that. I am mentioning this as it might be important but I
am not sure.

Let's say we call our home network ANDY. When I go into the network
connections window it says the strength of the network ANDY is poor -
34% to be exact. I also see another network coming up called ANDY 2.
I have checked on my iMac and there is no computer network called ANDY
2 in our vacinity.

The interesting thing is that his computer reports the signal strength
of ANDY 2 to be excellent - 96% or something like that. However, when
we connect to ANDY 2 it then says the signal strength is 34% and the
signal strength of the first ANDY I talked about is now excellent and
at 96%! His connection doesn't appear to be dropping but I am just
curious as to the origin of the poor signal strength and also why his
computer is showing the home network twice. The network is password
protected and when I viewed the settings for both the ANDY networks
they were exactly the same and had the same password........

Any help would be appreciated!

Andy.

I would do two things:
1. Remove the Acer Net Management and let windows handle the network
2. Delete one of the Andy networks (Andy 1).

 

[Andy Hauss]

I would do two things:
1. Remove the Acer Net Management and let windows handle the network
2. Delete one of the Andy networks (Andy 1).

Thanks for your help. How would I go about deleting one of those ANDY
networks?

Andy

 

[+Bob+]

Thanks for your help. How would I go about deleting one of those ANDY
networks?

Andy

Start => Settings => Control Panel => Network
Manage Wireless Connections
Right Click on the connection you don't want
Choose Remove

 

[RalfG]

What you're describing is similar to things I've seen. The apparent signal
strength discrepancy could be a sign of limited hardware compatibility or
packet loss after connection. The higher values would be the raw radio
signal strength from the router, the lower ones reflecting the quality of
the signal after connection. As far as the second Andy network it's probably
just a duplicate entry in the laptop but just because the iMac doesn't see
it doesn't mean it couldn't be real. I was testing the wireless connection
to a new router the other day using different wireless USB adapters from the
same PC. The adapters each had different chipsets and capabilities and while
there were plainly 4 different WLANS accessible nearby with one adapter,
another adapter would show only 2 of those WLANS and my own router was not
one of the ones detected. On a different level of the house there could be
as many as 6 WLANS showing up.

 

[Andy Hauss]

What you're describing is similar to things I've seen. The apparent
signal strength discrepancy could be a sign of limited hardware
compatibility or packet loss after connection. The higher values would
be the raw radio signal strength from the router, the lower ones
reflecting the quality of the signal after connection. As far as the
second Andy network it's probably just a duplicate entry in the laptop
but just because the iMac doesn't see it doesn't mean it couldn't be
real. I was testing the wireless connection to a new router the other
day using different wireless USB adapters from the same PC. The
adapters each had different chipsets and capabilities and while there
were plainly 4 different WLANS accessible nearby with one adapter,
another adapter would show only 2 of those WLANS and my own router was
not one of the ones detected. On a different level of the house there
could be as many as 6 WLANS showing up.

So you're saying that just because it shows low signal strength it may
not necessarily mean that the signal isn't getting through to his
computer very well?

Andy.

 

[RalfG]

So you're saying that just because it shows low signal strength it may not
necessarily mean that the signal isn't getting through to his computer
very well?

Andy.

Yes, but not only that. There's a difference between signal strength and
signal quality or connection quality. A strong signal is reaching the
laptop from the router but there may be external interference or other
factors degrading the data stream as the laptop is connected. The connection
is two way don't forget. The downstream connection from the router is one
factor but the upstream connection from his laptop, or rather its WiFi
adapter, also affects the overall quality of the connection between the two
devices. Some WLAN connection utilities will show both (radio) signal
strength and connection (data stream) quality separately so you can see the
difference between the two but many only show a single value/graph/meter. I
think the actual connection rate (speed) he is getting when connected to the
router can be used as an indication of the overall quality of his
connection. Just now my own WiFi adapter is showing 4 of 5 bars on the
signal strength graph for the unconnected signal coming from my router.
When I connect to the router the graph dropped to 3 bars but it's been
fluctuating between 3 and 4. The router itself has been reporting a
connected signal quality varying between 62% and 88% over time for this
computer. My connection speed on the other hand is steady at 54Mbps so
despite the variations in signal quality and strength the connection is
actually quite solid. Today there happen to be 4 other WLANS operating
within range and any of them are liable to interfere in some degree with the
quality of my connection.

Ralf.