Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with WindowsXP and wireless

Why-Fi?

Rhaomi — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:17:19 -0800

What's killing my wi-fi connection? The last few days I've been having some odd problems with my wireless network. I'll be browsing on my laptop when all of a sudden things get really slow, as if I lost the connection. But instead of being sent to "This page is not available" or "server not found" pages like when there really is no connection, I just get stuck loading forever. So if I open a tab and go to Google, it will sit and load saying "Waiting for www.google.com" in the status bar for a minute or two, then eventually say "Done" -- even though the only thing that has loaded is a completely blank tab (even the source code of the page is empty) with the raw URL in the title bar.

But throughout all this, there's no indication that I've lost my connection. The wifi icon in the system tray doesn't change, and says I'm connected if I hover over it. When I open up the Command Prompt and enter ipconfig /all, it says all my internet connection stats are normal. The subnet mask, DHCP server, DNS, etc. are all there. The IP address doesn't start with 169. It's all okay.

Weirdest of all, despite the fact that I can see that all the connection info is normal, if I enter my router's IP address into the address bar (which usually takes me to the router's settings page), it just does the same thing. Load... load... load... blank tab. I understand not being able to connect to the internet, but if I can see all my connection and router info in Command Prompt, why can't I connect to the same router with my browser?

The only way to fix it, I've found, is to disconnect from the wireless network and reconnect. It'll then work fine for anywhere from one minute to fifteen, at which point the connection drops again. This is only affecting my laptop, by the way -- iPods and other laptops connect fine.

I've tried restarting my computer, restarting the router, and repairing the connection -- nothing works. It seems that getting closer to the router improves things, but I'm not sure since the problem comes and goes randomly. And besides, the router is in the same place as it's always been, so unless it's suddenly lost broadcasting power I don't see what would cause the problem. And in the "View Wireless Networks" window, it says the network has an Excellent signal when I'm not connected (though that decreases a bar or two once I do).

The only incident I can think of is that a power surge recently burnt out the power supply, and I had to buy a universal one with an adapter to get the router up and running again. But this was a week or two before the trouble started, so that's probably not the source.

Is there anything that would cause a wireless router to lose signal strength like that? Is there something I can do to fix it, or should I just spring for a new one?

Details: I have a Dell laptop running Windows XP SP3. I have a Bellsouth Fast Access DSL internet connection. The router is a 2Wire HomePortal 1700HW. The loading problem happens on Firefox, Chrome, and IE7.

One more detail I remembered: For awhile when the problem first started, ipconfig /all was giving me some weird info. For instance, it said that the "lease" for the connection expired one second after it was obtained. But it's not doing that anymore.

How can I get my laptop to print wirelessly again?

stleric — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:15:48 -0800

How can I get my laptop to print wirelessly to an HP DeskJet 6980 like it used to? Okay, so I've got a ThinkPad T42 with XP Home SP2 and Intel 2200BG.

I bought one of HP's DeskJet 6980 inkjets with wireless built in, and I used to be able to connect and print to it flawlessly for the first few months, but just as soon as I installed this IPSec client for my school's wireless network (I never got the client to work), I couldn't print to my printer wirelessly anymore. My laptop still connects to the printer's ad hoc network, but I can't get access anything that requires communication between the computer and printer (printer status, remaining ink levels, etc.), and every time I attempt to print, the print job hangs for about a minute and I get this message. Trying to ping it through DOS returns some message along the lines of "configuration error." Given that I could never get the IPSec software to work, I uninstalled it, but the problem remained. (Incidentally, the laptop still works just fine with every other wireless network.)

I've tried contacting HP support on the issue both over their online chat (not helpful at all) and their phone number (at least the guy tried), but nothing that they suggested ultimately helped. I've tried different IP and firewall configurations, I've attempted all sorts of ipconfig trickery, I've reset the printer to factory settings several times, and I've uninstalled and reinstalled the printer software probably about 5 or 6 times. Every time, it still works completely the same - it prints fine and easily via USB, it works over an ethernet/patch cable after about 10 minutes of cajoling.

The curious thing, though, is that I can get it to print wirelessly just as easily as it used to when, and only when I connect the computer via ethernet cable to my desktop (which, incidentally, is neither wireless, nor is it connected to the printer). Every time, I connect the cable, the local area network icon in the system tray comes up with the little yellow/exclamation point warning bubble (this happens every time), I select "repair connection," and like magic, not only does this let me access shared folders on the other computer, the wi-fi printing on my laptop works again. I know that repairing the wired connection seems to go through some things like renewing the IP address and clearing (I think) NetBT cache or something to that effect. Nevertheless, after that, every time I wake the computer from standby or restart, I can't print wirelessly again.

So what gives? How can I get my laptop to do whatever it's doing when it connects to the other computer and repairs automatically, or figure out what the IPSec install screwed up in the first place?

If anyone can actually help me out with this, much, much, much thanks - I've been trying to fix this for months...

Why does XP hate my network?

logovisual — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 18:27:35 -0800

Mixed wireless network: 3 Macs, one Windows XP PC. We're using 40-bit WEP encryption, and for some reason the Windows XP laptop simply cannot stay on the network... why that be? We use the hex equivalent for the password, and the laptop can get on the internet when it's entered, but even so, XP still insists that the computer is "not connected" to the network, and every few minutes the internet connection gets dropped. Anybody have any ideas? It's not a reception issue; the laptop can be sitting right next to the router and this will still happen. It's got to be some kind of configuration thing I'm missing, but I was hoping somebody would know what this behavior is symptomatic of (i.e. the sporadic connection)...

Getting Airport only connect to Access Points

phyrewerx — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:53:22 -0800

Is there a way to tell a Powerbook with airport to connect only to Access Points like Windows XP? In Windows XP, there is an option to tell the computer to connect to Peer to Peer networks only, Access Points only or both. I'm wondering if the same option exists on OS X.

Why won't wireless networks show up?

borkencode — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:53:21 -0800

Strange laptop wireless problems following Windows XP Home upgrade to Pro.... My girlfriend bought a new Dell 600m laptop for law school and it came with XP home. The law school requires XP Pro to connect to the network, so I upgraded it for her, and the next morning she took it to school, where they had her modify some things to connect to the network. After this she noticed that when she viewed the available wireless networks it would continue to show networks she had previously connected to, even though they were impossibly far out of range (ie the law school network while she was at home). The networks were displayed with full strength, but she could obiously not connect to them.
I tried messing with some configuration things, and managed to somehow clear the list of networks, exept for the law school network. The problem is that now it doesn't show any networks besides that one. So she can't reconnect to her home network, and is worried that she might not be able to connect at school on monday.

Any wireless gurus with an idea how to fix this?

Wireless Network Setup Question (for PC)

scarabic — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 09:55:29 -0800

Twiddling my thumbs... wirelessly! I'm setting up a new Windows XP Pro laptop with built-in 802.11b. It seems to detect our Apple Airport (I) base station just fine, and connect to it. Just can't get any network services through it (ie: web pages are all 404s). Any suggestions?