Not picking up wireless signal.

Terry

My neighbour's laptop can't pick up his own broadband signal.
It's not a problem with the router because it's working fine on his netbook.

So I disabled the wireless card and then re-enabled it. Nothing.
Uninstalled the driver and re-installed it. Still nothing.

The weird thing is that he's picking up other signals. Weaker ones from around the estate.

Has anyone ever seen this before?

Oh yeah. He's using Windows ****ing Vista. Can't remember the make or model of the laptop.

billymitchell

Is he using the windows software to pick up the signal, or the wireless cards software proprietary software?

jpl888

Is Windows f#;'ing Vista up to date?

Assuming the driver is up to date there are a couple of possibilities off the top of my head:

1. The wireless card/driver isn't WPA compatible and the router is using WPA.
2. The router is using an unusual 2.4Ghz channel i.e. 12 or 13 that the wireless card can't cope with.

I'm sure there are other possibilities but I can't think of them at the moment. I suppose the more info you give the more chance I'll have of thinking of something.

ronkmonster

Does the laptop and router have wireless N? Some connections have problems with not the same brand. Especially if one was the draft version of N. You can limit both to G and see how it works then

jpl888

I'd *hope* that in that case both the router and card would revert back to 80211g without having to be told. AFAIK that is the way it should work.

Terry

It was working at one stage.
The router is the Netopia 2247 (you know the one that's not very secure).
It's wep. The wireless card is G.

I reset the router, but that didn't work either.

There is definitely no N with the router or wireless card.

Terry

billymitchell wrote: »

Is he using the windows software to pick up the signal, or the wireless cards software proprietary software?

Sorry. Missed this one.

He's using windows.
Like I said, it was working properly.
I just can't understand how he can pick up other signals.
One is wep and the other is wpa-psk.

jpl888

Have you the latest firmware for the 2247?

Could you post the Netopia's wireless settings minus the WEP key to check it over?

Quick every one round to Terry's for free internet, he's only got WEP

Terry

jpl888 wrote: »

Have you the latest firmware for the 2247?

Could you post the Netopia's wireless settings minus the WEP key to check it over?

Quick every one round to Terry's for free internet, he's only got WEP

It's the neighbour's laptop, dude. I know how to secure my signal.
8Mb line he has.

Anyway, I'm not in his house right now, so I can't post up the details.
I would have taken a screenie, but had no way of transferring it elsewhere. Apart from to the flash drive I forgot that I had in my pocket.

I'd imagine he doesn't have the latest firmware. They wouldn't be the most computer savvy people. In their late 50's/ early 60's.

jpl888

Terry wrote: »

It's the neighbour's laptop, dude. I know how to secure my signal.
8Mb line he has.

Anyway, I'm not in his house right now, so I can't post up the details.
I would have taken a screenie, but had no way of transferring it elsewhere. Apart from to the flash drive I forgot that I had in my pocket.

I'd imagine he doesn't have the latest firmware. They wouldn't be the most computer savvy people. In their late 50's/ early 60's.

Yeah I know, should've said Terry's neighbour's house Sure if you are neighbours they could pick it up in your house too, would be a good place to do the cracking and you could get a cup of tea too

I would start with the firmware then. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen a partially bricked Netopia that was fixed by a reflash, and at least if everything is up to date we have good building blocks to fix the problem.

Biggins

Terry, have you tried turning off any firewalls?
One of them could be blocking it (thru a particular filter setting that is set on it) ?

Overheal

Have you tried to reset the router to its defaults? I'll bet you a cookie that the router is not broadcasting its SSID, is only broadcasting in Wireless N, or something similarly simple.

ronkmonster

jpl888 wrote: »

I'd *hope* that in that case both the router and card would revert back to 80211g without having to be told. AFAIK that is the way it should work.

It should but I had a problem with draft N and finalised N before. I had to set the laptop to just use b/g and ignore the N

Terry

Using the other laptop, I updated the firmware. Still no joy.

Overheal, the very first thing I did was to reset the router. Also, the SSID is being broadcast. I checked with the other laptop and on the router homepage.

Biggins, there are no firewalls interfering with it.

jpl888, it's not the next door neighbours. The signal is fairly weak from here.
Mind you, I was able to pick it up in my back bedroom with the wireless adapter I use with my PC. It has a range of about 300 metres.

There is definitely no N issue here. It's broadcasting in B/G. Both laptops use G.
This one is a HP pavilion dv2. Broadcom 802.11 B/G wireless adapter.

I had such a pain in my bollix with it that I did a full factory restore. This did not solve the problem.

I'm thinking XP or Windows 7. Before and after the factory restore, some of the programmes were crashing. Audio and some of the packaged HP software.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

jpl888

Do you know what make, model and chipset the wireless card is?

There's a good chance it will work with Ubuntu 10.04, so you could boot from an Ubuntu CD and try to connect. That would tell us whether it's the wireless card of Windows that's causing the problem.

If you could post the info though it will help, or failing that the pci vendor id's from device manager (I can work out the chipset from that).

Terry

VEN\_14E4&DEV_4315

I've lost my Ubuntu cd. This doesn't have an optical drive. I would need to boot from usb.
I'll download the latest Ubuntu and see what happens.
I've never booted from usb before and know little or nothing about Linux, but it's worth a try.

I'm sure that as long as I leave the recovery partition intact that little or nothing can go wrong.

jpl888

Exactly as long as you boot from the liveCD/usb. Or you could install wubi and run from a file inside your windows partitions. Whichever suits. wubi won't fsck it up either.

So that's a Broadcom 4315. I have quite a bit of experience with the 4312's which you have to use the proprietary driver with, the 4315 will be the same, so it *should* tell you there are restricted drivers available when you first boot.

rebeve

You might take a look at this link .http://www.nvidiadefect.com/play-com-hp-g6032ea-wireless-networking-disappeared-t685.html

ronkmonster

Can you connect to other wireless networks?

You mentioned resetting the router, did you mean power cycle or restore to default settings?

Terry

ronkmonster wrote: »

Can you connect to other wireless networks?

You mentioned resetting the router, did you mean power cycle or restore to default settings?

Yes, and both.

Black Swan

This could be a Vista and wifi router access point configuration problem...

It's been awhile since I converted to Windows 7, so I may be missing something, but I was wondering if the wifi router access point matches the Vista Windows setting?

What connection mode is the router wifi access point set to? Is it ad hoc or infrastructure? The specs that came with the device should state this, and if it defaults to one.

What connection mode is Vista Windows set to? It needs to match the router wifi access point; e.g., infrastructure to infrastructure, or ad hoc to ad hoc.

From the command prompt in Vista type:
netsh wlan add filter networktype=network type

Network should appear: infrastructure or adhoc (designate the one that matches your wifi device).

Reboot, select the wifi device SSID, and pray.