Very Fickle Wireless Network

November 25, 2007 9:08 AM

Does anyone have any idea as to why a Macbook Pro or a laptop running WinXP could see a wireless network broadcast from an old Netgear (802.11b network) but two different laptops running Vista would not even see that the network exists? The SSID is being broadcast and while there is basic MAC address filtering being used, the Vista laptops don't even see that a network exists. Thanks.
posted by Ikazuchi to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

What is the distance? I'm assuming for testing purposes all 3 laptops are at the same spot, but if not: my macbook picks up a lot more networks than my older Dell 700m. I assumed it was just a higher quality wireless card.

Did you check the wireless cards on the Vista laptops? Are they even B compatible? I think some of the new wireless cards have dropped B/G in favor of G/N, but I could be wrong about that.

Have you gone to the wireless card manufacturer's website and updated the driver to the newest possible?
posted by sharkfu at 9:21 AM on November 25, 2007

First of all, make sure the Vista laptops are not setup to see "G only" networks- this may be in the wireless card utility or in network settings. Secondly, try changing the channel on the Netgear B network (try either 1, 6, or 11) in case the Vista laptops are receiving interference from another AP n the same channel.

If these two steps do not work, I would disable MAC filtering on the AP.

For troubleshooting, two programs that may help you are Netstumbler (PC) and iStumbler (Mac).
posted by crazyray at 9:22 AM on November 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Another possibility: do the dells have 802.11a cards by some odd chance?
posted by Good Brain at 10:09 AM on November 25, 2007

Might be some synergies in a recent question I asked the other week...

Something else I had issues with (unrelated to the above referenced previous question) was Norton AV - for the second time - although it took me an age to figure out that *it* was causing the problem - and I can't tell you what that problem actually was, just that unistalling it and re-installing it brought back wireless connectivity without any issues; my only clue was that the trouble-shooter suggested firewall issues as a possible cause (which, I, obviously being far more intelligent than Vista, scoffed at. Initially. Ahem.)
posted by DrtyBlvd at 1:21 AM on November 26, 2007