Network problems. help needed

[Fitseries3]

oh man... where to start.

my GF's laptop has ran fine on my network for about a year and a half now perfectly fine.

the other day it stopped connecting via wifi out of the blue. i tried tons of typical ways to revive the wifi connection but no solution was found.

next i plug in the ethernet cable just to get it back on the network. it can do anything on the internet just fine but cannot see the local network computers at all. even the network printer cannot be seen. like the wifi problem i tried TONS of typical ways to solve the problem and nothing worked to solve the problem.


now that you see the basic problem let me go into detail.

the laptop uses a PC card/pcmcia wifi card. i have 2 different ones. both can see the router but neither can connect. i have tried manually setting the whole thing up and it does the same crap... cant connect. i reset the router and redid the whole network and still have the same problem.

on the ethernet connection i can see the router and use the internet but i cannot see anything else on the local network. i have made sure that the laptop is set to the correct network name and it does have a password setup. SOMETIMES(1 out of 20) i can see the laptops shared folders but i cannot access any data from them after about 30seconds.

i have tried new drivers, winsockfix tool, regcleaner, ccleaner, system mechanic, system restore(to before the problem started) and a handfull of other things. i have tried 100's of guides on network troubleshooting and nothing has helped. I AM FAAAAAAAAAARRRR from a network noob.(i have a degree in computer science and have a+, network+, CCNP and MCSE certs)

i have exhausted every idea i can come up with so im looking to you guys to help.(LOL)

 

[mrhuggles]

http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

please be carefull with that program i umm, well i dunno if thats your issue but im betting youve tried everything else so why not.

good luck

 

[Fitseries3]

yup. i used it to delete all the dll's and reinstalled them and still haveing the same problems.

the wifi cards both work in another computer just fine so i know its not that either.

 

[mrhuggles]

it could be a router issue, since you have your certs im guessing you checked what ip the laptop is getting on LAN [that it is on the same subnet as the rest of the LAN] also, it sounds like it could kinda be a firewall issue too, like maybe internet settings set LAN to high and WAN to medium or something, oh also the reason i said firewall is a fairly recent patch reenabled my firewall, and a couple other annoying things too, could be that windows update updated your wifi drivers and that braught up an incompatibility with WPA2, could try changing it and the password and see if that helps, but as far as not being able to connect to lan I'd say thats prolly either a firewall issue, or a issue with the router seperateing the WIFI from the rest of the lan via giving it a different subnet, atleast most probably, and if your having an issue with that if its not the router,

still trying to come up with stuff :?

 

[allen337]

use the software that came with the wi-fi card not windows.

 

[Fitseries3]

they are driver only cards. no software.

not using any security at all.

firewalls have been disabled.

tried 3 different routers and i have reset all of them.

windows update hasnt been run on this machine for MONTHS. nothing else has been updated other than firefox and ccleaner.

there is no antivirus or antispyware progs on this laptop. i have scanned the drive in another computer and it has no known infections.

3 other computers in the house use the wifi too. i have tried shutting them all off and just using the laptop to connect.

i have manually set static ip's and properly configured the entire network and i have also tried the auto config settings.

wifi signal is at excellent. the laptop trys to connect and then fails.

any other ideas?

it feels like a registry setting is blocking the wifi card from connecting and file sharing and other network activities also seem to be disabled in the registry.... although they all seem to be functioning perfectly fine from a configuration standpoint.

 

[kid41212003]

When you try to connect, did it ask you for passwords? Or it just try to connect, and then fail?

 

[Fitseries3]

says connecting, connecting, connecting, then goes back to available wifi networks and asks if you want to connect to one. it never actually connects at all. even on other networks throughout town. keeps doing this until it lies and says there are no networks found.

i just got back from walmart and i bought a new adapter and it does the same thing. this one is USB though.

 

[kid41212003]

It maybe because of the old profile.

The first time when you connect the computer to the network, windows will create the profile for it, with ID, and passwords on it, so it can do auto-connect.

You'll need to delete this profile.

 

[Fitseries3]

i did that a few hundred times already unless you know another place its stored in.

 

[kid41212003]

Is your wireless router/modem support N?
And, the laptop is G?

 

[Fitseries3]

yes. i have tried setting it to g mode but ususally its on auto negotiate.

laptop G and i have 3 N routers. all the routers run on DD-WRT. i have tried a few different version of the firmwares and it none fix my problem with the laptop.

 

[kid41212003]

I didn't mean it that way, lol.

The story is, I have a N router, the one I was selling last week, I could connect my mom's computer to it, and it has a cheap Rosewill G wireless adapter.
But I couldn't connect a laptop to it, It has G wireless. I tried alot of things like you did, but nothing worked.
So, I borrowed an old G router from my neighboor (2 years old), and it worked fine.
I couldn't explain why though, because my mom's cheap G adapter worked, but why the laptop didn't?
You might want to try the native G router...

 

[Fitseries3]

i tried that tooooooo. lol!

i have a few wrt54g's and they wont allow it to connect either.

it has worked flawlessly for months and months and months without ANY change in the configuration so there is no reason that it would be any different now. its just odd. really odd.

i even have a wifi N card that i tried and it wont connect.

 

[mrhuggles]

if they are linksys routers with broadcom chips, check to make sure they are in b+g mode [definatly not g only] i had a similar issue and that had fixed it [otherwise atheros or some broadcom too stuff had trouble connecting, also the wii]

EDIT: doesnt it sound like maybe the antenna is loose or the wifi chip overheated?

 

[Fitseries3]

there are 3 other computers using the wifi though. im on one of them now.

antennae are not loose.... they are soldered to the wifi cards inside the router.

 

[mrhuggles]

i meant in the laptop

 

[Fitseries3]

the laptop uses a PC card/pcmcia card. the antennae are inside a sealed unit.

 

[Athlon2K15]

is her pc using winxp?

 

[mrhuggles]

ahh ok, was just thnking maybe it was in the screen, ive seen ones like that fail even tho they were inside the screen

 

[Fitseries3]

yes

 

[Athlon2K15]

try this
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...4D-E7C1-48D6-95EE-1459234F4483&displaylang=en

 

[theeldest]

Another option for pinpointing the problem is to use a linux live CD (like knoppix or something) and see if it works in that just to rule out the hardware possibility.

 

[Fitseries3]

trying it now.

 

[Fitseries3]

nope. i think i know whats up here.

the laptop always gets really hot. i bet the pcmcia controller fried enough to make me think its still working but prevents it from actually working how it should.

it does the same crap in ubuntu as it does in windows.