Wifi, come back!

February 5, 2007 5:53 PM

Why has my laptop started turning off its wireless radio randomly?

Just this morning, after several months of flawless wireless computing, my laptop, a Lenovo, began inexplicably booting me offline. For no apparent reason, my wireless capability suddenty disappears, requiring me to manually turn the wireless radio back on. (it's not a router issue, as, once the wireless radio is on, I have no problem picking up a wireless signal and reconnecting.) Needless to say, this is an enormous pain in the posterior. I searched through the company's online support, but found no help, so before I call/e-mail, I thought I'd throw it out to you folks. Any suggestions? (As always, thanks in advance.)

posted by shallowcenter to computers & internet (9 comments total)

If you are doing this on battery power, your battery could be starting to fail. Wi-Fi operation seems to be voltage-sensitive.
posted by jamjam at 6:19 PM on February 5, 2007

Alas, jam, the problem happens whether I'm plugged in or not.
posted by shallowcenter at 6:20 PM on February 5, 2007

I have a Lenovo, and mine started doing the very same thing.

Here's how I fixed it, I think. I don't pretend to know why this worked, but it seems to have.

Go to Control Panel, Network Connections, right click on Wireless Network Connection, and click Properties ("Wireless Properties" from here forward).

On the Wireless Networks tab, uncheck "Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings" and press OK.

Open Wireless Properties again, and recheck the box you just unchecked, press OK.

In Wireless Properties yet again, click "Configure" on the General tab, select the Advanced tab, and turn the Wireless Radio off. Press OK.

Repeat what you just did, only turn it on.

I've had the problem you described happen twice with my Lenovo, and doing this seems to fix it for a while (months).
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:16 PM on February 5, 2007

When I had this issue with a laptop it was because the internal wireless card was half-in (probably because it was dropped).

Just removed on screw and pushed the little wireless card back into the slot.
posted by dawiz at 10:20 PM on February 5, 2007

I second the re-seat the mini-PCI card like what dawiz says. I had that problem on a ThinkPad I set down a little too hard. Reseating the card and making sure the antenna was clicked into it fixed it right up.
posted by todbot at 12:53 AM on February 6, 2007

Thinkpads have a stupid "feature" whereby the power management software turns off the wireless radio when it thinks you aren't using the network. There's a way to turn it off, but I don't know what it is offhand. Try the thikpad forums.
posted by Nelson at 4:25 AM on February 6, 2007

On XP with an Intel wireless card, try:
Start -> Connect To -> Show all connections. Right click on Wireless Network Connection and select Properties. Click on the Configure button next to the adapter name (Intel 2200, Intel 3495, etc). The far right tab should be Power Management. Uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

Also, on the Advanced tab, scroll down the Property list and set Power Management to the middle or Highest, and set Roaming Aggresiveness to Lowest.

Also, try upgrading Access Connections from the Lenovo site, if you are using that instead of Windows to handle wireless. It can get wonky over time.
posted by sardonista at 8:47 AM on February 6, 2007

How very funny that you ask this question! I nearly posted a question about the same problem just this past weekend.
After calling the Lenovo tech support, I went to this page: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/quickPath.do?quickPathEntry=06573pu&sitestyle=lenovo (sorry, linky not working so hot today) and downloaded a new driver for my wireless radio. Troubleshooting with the Lenovo tech led me to believe that a recent upgrade to the new IE may have led to an incompatibility, since the problem began shortly after I downloaded the new version.
posted by msali at 8:54 AM on February 6, 2007

I've been having a similar problem with my wifi. After a few weeks of changing computer configurations, I discovered the problem - the antenna on the wireless router was loose. The antenna swivels, and in trying to fix the problem I was repositioning it, and hence loosening it further. Aaargh!
posted by mediaddict at 7:31 PM on March 12, 2007