Wireless networking troubleshooting

Moved into a flat, router was set up (some bog standard crap from telecom, thompson or something - yes I find myself on goddamn xtra), one computer works (running xp) had been set up previously. Bought 2 network cards, my computer (running 7) works after some initial hardware issues. My laptop (snow leopard) worked straight up, no fucking around (funny that).

The last computer that I bought a network card for (Asus WL-138G V2 if you must know) runs XP pro, had some awful D-link dial in thing originally (that I can't completely remove due to some dll issues or some typical windows bullshit), not that I think that is related. I can see the network. It won't fucking connect. Using windows zero config it asks for the password, thinks then the connecting dialog disappears and I'm left back at the select network dialog, no errors, as if I never tried to connect.
Using the Asus utility I get a little more info, it suggests I'm using the wrong encryption method. I dunno if that is true but I've tried every single fucking option available. Nothing works.

Currently my options are: Unplug Thompson router that gives crap all options on it's config screen and try my linksys. Or, dump windows on the other machine and start again (I have a spare 7 here) and hope that it was just xp spazzing out.

I suppose I should dig out my linksys as a matter of course anyway, but anything obvious I'm missing?

The linksys worked....

How about you suggest everyone just bite the bullet and get macs you fucken pillock

touchy.

Actually this is driving me fucking nuts. Now my win7 machine is connected but not getting shit, not even the router's webpage. Yet the mac works fine. Why do I point this out? Not to point out some superiority of the mac (although it kinda does that itself), but to say it seems like some issue at the computer. Y'know, attempting to isolate the problem as part of normal troubleshooting?

Not sure about the XP machines since I changed the router, but they were dropping out all the time with the other router. Why the fuck did the mac never drop out?! I thought we'd gone over our cap today (uugh) until I booted the mac. wtf?!

Question: What's the most common causes of wifi issues? Anyone had no response from a router over wifi on a windows machine before? What did you do?

Hardware? User error?

Sometimes the air gets over saturated with the "WIFI" which results in dropouts and connections not working.

WTF?

Tried changing the channel?

yup. I also changed the security to WPA, formally it was WEP. It's working atm, hopefully it doesn't die again...

*Over saturation - common in densely packed CBD locations. See: http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2450/captureyr.jpg - that's on a good day, from my bedroom. I've had up to 30 before. Hence moving to 5ghz
*Interference from other devices - microwaves, 2.4ghz phones etc.

*Have I had no response before?
-Yes, because the AP was locking up/overheating thanks to me overpowering it by about 8 times more power than it was designed to put out. Rebooting it works.
-Yes, because of shit happening between the AP and the client when it came to auto-negotiating the encryption type. Generally this was with WEP, I haven't seen that in a long while.
-Yes, because the encryption key was entered wrong and bizzare shit happened. Windows reported it was connected, but wouldn't DHCP. Re-entering the key work.

As for your specific problem - fuck knows really without playing, but I suspect it's the middle option. Now that you have switched to WPA (2 I hope, although it's not really a major as long as it's not WEP), lets hope it's fine.


As an aside, funnily enough our iMac at work can't stay connected to the wifi for shit. No biggie, it's a distance from the AP and I just ran a cable cos gig-e is win.

I wanted to do WPA 2 but on the XP machines (or one of them anyway) that didn't appear to be an option, might check again when I can...

Just used that network scanner and there is only one other wireless network nearby - crazy! I'm in Remuera now...

Every time I've switched the computer on it's taken a few minutes too get the connection back. I just disabled IPv6 (I dunno, someone on the net did that in combo with other things and it worked for him) and assigned myself an IP address and DNS servers manually. Net went off for a few seconds and came back rather quickly. Will see how this works...

Yeah I had issues getting the mac to stay on the network at my mothers place, noises on the net that Airport and D-Link don't play well, but assigned DNS servers manually and it seemed to work a treat.

Shit sounds fucked up.

Just FYI, vanilla WinXP SP2 will need the following hotfix to work with WPA2- WPA is supported but WPA2 support was added via a hotfix later on.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=662bb74d-e7c1-48d6-95ee-1459234f4483&displaylang=en

Okay thanks

Gah, booted up just now, had problems connecting for about 5 minutes, couldn't connect, doesn't know what's wrong etc, network disappears blah blah... Then it comes right. *shrug*

Will work it out one day, at least it does work once it gets going I suppose.

Of course, you should be on SP3 now anyway.

btw, this has only got worse. My net is absolutely borked most of the time, but only on my machine. Next I'm going to get XP working on the PC to see if it's a Windows 7 issue, seeing as it works so well on the other 2 XP machines.
Depending on the results I might just work out how to get a wire to the router and give wireless the flick.

Or just start making the PC more irrelevant.

Funny thing, is it appears to be resolved this week. Last weekend we moved the router a bit closer to the actual computers. It wasn't that far away to start with and the patterns I was seeing didn't make me think it was a distance issue, but there ya go, I've (re)learnt a lesson, check basic physical shit first.

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple CEO Steve Jobs was thwarted in his attempt to show off how clearly the newest iPhone displays web pages, apparently because too many computers were clogging the wireless network at the conference where he was on stage.

LOL

Same thing happened to google recently too.