Wifi Network Disconnecting, Is It Software Corruption Or Hardware Malfunction

[vagabond48]

I am using a 4 year old Dell Lattitude with OS XP Pro, Sp3 using Intel wifi. I do not have a router.

Over the last 3 months, my wifi network intermittently disconnects. which of course disconnects me from the building's wifi access point. It may disconnect once a day or like today, it has disconnected at least 4 times already since 9AM. When I see that the wifi active light is off, I know that my wifi network has disconnected so I can no longer connect to an access point. To fix this, I right click the Wifi network icon on the taskbar, and select "repair" to re-establish the network connection which brings the wifi light back. The 2 months this re-established the net connection and connected me back to the wifi access point. Now, most of the times, it re-establishes the net connection only and I must manually connect back to my access point. Sometimes, I am unable to re-establish the network connection and the alert display of the network status freezes and I cannot cancel the repair. At this point the laptop is still functioning fine but to re-establish my connection, I am forced to shutdown my laptop. When I shutdown, the PC hangs on "windows is shutting down" so I need to power off the laptop.

I am back to my question, does this sound like software corruption or some hardware malfunction.

Thanks

[barryw52]

I was never a fan of the way XP handled Wi-Fi. It is real guess what this problem maybe. Have you tried upgrading the XP driver for your Wi-fi device? Check the Dell Site and even the manufacture site for the Wi-Fi hardware.

[vagabond48]

I was never a fan of the way XP handled Wi-Fi. It is real guess what this problem maybe. Have you tried upgrading the XP driver for your Wi-fi device? Check the Dell Site and even the manufacture site for the Wi-Fi hardware.

I knew there was something I left out. Within device manager,I uninstalled the wifi network adapter and re-installed it with the latest driver from Dell Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection.

[NanLaew]

Are you using the Intel wifi connection manager or using XP's wifi connection manager? You should be able to select either option unless Dell has decided to make those choices for you. I have experienced issues with Intel PRO devices on other laptop platforms. You can try Intel's site and make sure that you have the latest version of their connection software AND the latest matching driver. However, it is possible that you have acquired one of those frequent pain-in-the-arse 'combo' conflicts where the hardware, software and o/s just don't get along. This is usually after an XP service pack installation or security band aid update from MS.

[vagabond48]

Are you using the Intel wifi connection manager or using XP's wifi connection manager? You should be able to select either option unless Dell has decided to make those choices for you. I have experienced issues with Intel PRO devices on other laptop platforms. You can try Intel's site and make sure that you have the latest version of their connection software AND the latest matching driver. However, it is possible that you have acquired one of those frequent pain-in-the-arse 'combo' conflicts where the hardware, software and o/s just don't get along. This is usually after an XP service pack installation or security band aid update from MS.

Yes, I was using Intel's Wifi network software. I have for over 4 years. I also got the latest driver from my Dell which was about 2 years old. I did check Intel and found a more recent download. In the meantime, as you suggested, yesterday I allowed windows XP to manage the Wifi network. So far, I haven't had the problem and the wifi connects as soon as I log in, something that the Intel software stopped doing recently and in the past didn't most of the time.

Thanks for reminding me about XP's wifi option.

[Pib]

As FYI on my 4 to 5 year old Tosihba laptop with Intel 3945ABG Wifi chip I would experience a very similar problem in frequent disconnects (i.e, loss IP connection but still connected to the Wifi router) unless I used the 20 Oct 2007 version of the Intel 3945ABG driver. If I allow the Windows automatic update function to update the driver (and their is a later version) I have disconnect problems....I have set the Windows automatic update feature to ignore the update for my 3945ABG. With the Oct 07 driver my connection is rock solid. My laptop acted this way with XP, Vista, and now Win7.

My laptop also has a separate BlueTooth chip and unless the BlueTooth driver loads properly it causes Wif connection problems with my Intel 3945 Wifi chip...apparently the two separate chips and their separate drivers do interact/depend on each other to a degree.

Laptops can be very picky about their drivers; much more so than desktops.

[vagabond48]

going to XP wifi has eliminated the problem and now my wifi automatically connects (so far) after logging into windows.

[vagabond48]

going to XP wifi has eliminated the problem and now my wifi automatically connects (so far) after logging into windows.

I spoke a bit too soon because over the last 10 days the same problem has returned although not as often as before and only once per day. I am still using XP to manage my wifi connection. The problem as before, starts by the wifi light going off. I go to Network Connections, disable the wifi link and itnormally reconnects. This morning it did not reconnect and when I shutdown windows it hung as before.

At some point, I need to re-install XP because of a few other problems. I'll see if this will solve this. I haven't re-installed XP since I got the laptop over 4 years ago so maybe it's time.

[Lannig]

Er... before you start reinstalling... have you talked to the other people in the building? making sure they are not suffering from the disconnects as well? It might well be the access point misbehaving, rebooting itself or whatever. Sorry if your reply's going to be "of course I did"

[innerspace]

Easy diagnosis of the source of th problem.

1) take your laptop to another wifi spot to see if the problem is with th laptop.

2) get someone to bring another wifi device to your room to see if its the condos router.