Right, a new one for the saga

Since having to AGAIN reformat the laptop a week or so ago (must stop fucking with the registry ) I have been having issues with it, that initially I put down to the laptop - thinking somehow the install of XP Pro (SP2) didn't take too well... Now I am not so sure...

First, it sometimes takes a long time to connect to my wireless network - at home. Out and about when I look for unsecured wifi it generally does fine. At home it used to be very quick to connect. I leave it on standby, and it used to be connected to the network between the time I open the lid (which wakes it up) and the desktop comes up on screen. Now it can take ages, just saying "AQUIRING NETWORK ADDRESS" or some shit....

Now and again, it tells me it is connected but has limited or no connectivity

Often it just drops the connection and reverts back to aquiring the network address for several seconds (usually less than 30, but sometimes a good min or two)

And the other night refused point blank to find my network, just saying no networks available!

And all of the above is with it reporting 4 out of 5 or 5 out of 5 bars and VERY GOOD to EXCELLENT signal strength!

Earlier in the week it refused to boot up past the blue WELCOME screen and I had to sys restore, then wireless refused to work (untill I uninstalled it and reinstalled the driver, and then it took several mins to find and connect to my network)

Yet out and about, it seems to be fine? It struggled to lock onto a network yesterday, but the signal strength was very low there so understandable....

I'm just not sure if this is a computer issue or an issue with my router?

Something that could also be related is I used to be able to access any PC's shared folder and My Documents folder on my network - which is to other PC's. Now I can access one of them fine, but my Main PC (which is the one I like to access the most) won't let me in - just says NETWORK PATH NOT FOUND when I click on it from MY NETWORK PLACES on my laptop. Oddly, it also does this from the other PC when trying to access the Main PC, but the other two (media PC and laptop) can access each other fine, and the Main PC can access both of them aswell....

Any idea's before I go nuts, bin everything and replace with an iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook and Airport Extreme?

 

in terms the wireless aquiruing IP address, what kinda of router do you have? and what security have you got set? I've seen something similar with orange/wanadoo livesh*tboxes. If you change the security from WEP to WPA it works much better with certain network cards. To prove this you could briefly remove security completely, and see how quickly it connects, if its quick then that is the issue, you just need to find a security option/channel that it works better on.

 

change the network channel your using, it's a common problem, other networks nearby using the same channel and it getting it's nickers in a twist - change to next channel in sequence and bobs ya uncle

 

I already using WPA (I think, will check when I get in) but I don't know anything about network channels! How do I find out what that is and how to change it?

The router is actually a NAS drive with wired router built in and intergrated wireless access point. Freecom FSG WLAN Gateway (http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_det...sCatID=1147649)

If you guys let me know what to look for in the settings, I'll have a nose tonight when I get in - thanks!

 

Any idea's cos it's surfing the web slow as fuck at the mo

 

okay, firstly changing the channel won't make any difference to the speed your surfing the net at, it might help the time it takes for the PC/laptop to register with the router.

To change the channel you just need to go into the router config pages, (usually accessed via the IP address of the router) on your web browser.

Een if its WPA your using for security, I still think its worth disabling security and then reboot your PC and see if it finds the router quicker next time to see if you still have the issue. You might have the same problem as I had but in reverse and find its better with WEP than WPA, i don't know. If its quicker with No security, then turn it back on and try the various different options on the router such as WPA, WEP 64, 128bit etc and see which one works quickest for you. Don't leave it with the security turned off though thats just stupid!

 

Right, I can see from it that it's on channel 04 (2.4 something gHz) but can't find an option to change it

Just now I turned it on and it connected and gave me "limited or no connectvity" again

 

Thrush,

Download a firmware update for the router (if there is one) and then update it. Then reset up your wireless network. If your using a built in wireless adapter disable it and buy a PCMCIA wireless card and use that.

 

How do I "reset" the wireless network?

And why change the internal card? It works fine EVERYWHERE else except in my own house!