i have been having problems lately keeping a connection to my wifi router. I have been using a Netgear WG111 v2 wireless USB adapter. Lately, however, it keeps on disconnecting after around 20 minutes or so. After doing some googling, i found that a lot of people are having problems with this adapter and Vista. So (this might be a bit of a neewbie question,but) is there other software out there that might work better?

My GF has a netgear router and XP, and her router drops connection frequently and needs to be rebooted. It's usually just because the router is a POS, not because of the client card or OS.

First thing to check is to see if your router has updated firmware available! This is the biggest thing.

Then see if your wireless card has updated drivers.

Make sure you are using the built-in Windows wireless features to connect. If your wireless card came with its own connection utility, disable it and use the windows features instead.

Then make sure your router is using MAC address authentication and WPA encryption; perhaps it's dropping the connection so often because it got pwned and some weenie is torrenting like crazy with it.

Make sure your router's settings are all correct, for instance, it's not set to drop you after 20 minutes of idle time.

If your router has a UPNP check box, try changing it to the other setting (either turning it off or on). I've seen this particular change really help in some cases.

HOWEVER, with all of the above said, there *are* certain rare combinations of access card and router that have troubles under Vista, and I know for a fact they're either fixing it in SP1 or have already released update patches to fix it. You might even be able to look in the KB and find an article about it with a link that lets you download a hotfix. So you can try that.

And to answer your specific question:

Quote:
is there other software out there that might work better?

I don't know of any choices of how to connect with a wireless card other than the following:

Drivers:
You can use either the ones that came with Windows (or that you got from WindowsUpdate), versus the ones you get from the manufacturer's web site.

In the case of Vista, the drivers might be "vista-native" drivers, or they might be XP drivers running in emulation mode (when I was doing wireless testing at Microsoft we called these "FAT drivers"). Go to the command prompt and do NETSH WLAN SHOW DRIVERS. It will say TYPE and the type will either be "Native Wi-fi driver" in the case of a vista native driver or it will say something about LEGACY if it's a FAT driver. You will have better luck with a native driver than a FAT driver.

Connection software:
You can use either the wireless connection features that come wtih Windows, or you can use the connection utility that comes with your network card. Both should work, but if one of them is giving you trouble, then try the other one.

Those are the only choices you've got, as far as I know.

And I just thought of one reason you might get a dropped connection. Imagine the following scenario:

- You took your laptop traveling.

- While traveling, you deliberately connected to some random open access point while sitting in an airport or coffee shop or something.

- The random open access point you connected to had a generic default name such as NETGEAR or DLINK or something (i.e., whoever set up the access point didn't change its name).

- Back home, you are connected to your own specially-named access point (your home access point has a unique SSID that you assigned it, right?) and it is working fine.

- But your neighbor has an open access point where they left it with a generic defult name like NETGEAR or DLINK or something.

- Your laptop occasionally sees your neighbor's access point and occasionally tries to connect to it, thus dropping the connection to your home network.

The solution, if this is the situation, is to go into the "manage wireless networks" screen and delete everything but your home network, so that it doesn't automatically try to connect to any other networks.

>>- But your neighbor has an open access point where they left it with a generic defult name like NETGEAR or DLINK or something.
<<

this turned out to be my problem when I had the same trouble.
I didn't realize that my neighbors signal was stronger, so my card was dropping my router and trying to connect to theirs. I assume that's why, anyway.

I commonly find WLANS defaulting to radio channel 6. Maybe he has a new neighbour using that channel too? I don't know what the symptoms are in this scenario but changing the channel might be worth a shot.

Good point. If his router or his wireless card is set to a fixed channel, that would be something he should change. In theory, both should be set to search for empty channels by default, but as you said, some gear is brain damaged in that regard.

I tried a different wifi card & it still disconnects. Does anyone have suggestions?

side question:

Does it make sense to set a multi standard wifi router to one particular standard, if one isn't using one or the other.

IE.. Fix b/g router fixed at either b or g.

Could it be that you have a Bluetooth-enabled device that's broadcasting every 20mins and crapping all over your WiFi?

I was playing with Bluetooth last week and the generic Toshiba/Sony PC drivers nagged me about the two technologies interfering with one another.

I wish it was something like that, but i don't have anything bluetooth on when I am using it. This problem is really driving me buggy. is anyone else on here using vista with a wifi card? if so, what settings are you using and which card?

i also tried a different USB Wifi adapter too (linksys) and it didn't help.

i thought i found a potential fix on the itsvista website, but it eventually lost its connection again. It seems when it loses its connection it loses the ability to see any wireless networks. When I unplug the wifi usb card and plug it back in, it "finds" them again. When I get done with work today, I might try this http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsof...ything-try.html

A driver issue is what I would think too but I tried a different brand of wifi card & it did thesame thing

For the main wifi card (Netgear), i used both the software that came with it and the Windows built in wifi finder. The one I just bought (linksys) only came with drivers and you had to use the Windows built in wifi finder.


Dumb question, what are legacy and native? I googled it, but couldn't find an answer...

Old driver vs one written for vista maybe ?

I'm sorry...i haven't had much time to try to fix this so I have only had time to skim over the thread and not read it as closely as i should have. They are native drivers.

Okay, that's good information.

Next, check the power management settings and make sure that the wireless adapters are set so that they are at their maximum power usage. I forget the names of the settings, but there might be a checkbox that says "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" or maybe it's a radio button that lets you choose between maximum power saving and fastest performance. Something like that. Have a look there.

ok.. i have found the power settings and unchecked 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.' I have played around this setting before though....

ok..while i haven't figured out how to fix that problem, there is another problem i am having with the wifi. Lately, it has been pretty slow. When I did the Cnet Bandwidth test, it rated it at about 156k. Although there have been times before where it was around 1900k. I know you might be thinking this is probably being caused by the wireless disconnecting problem, but i don't think it is. When trying to fix the disconnecting wireless, one of Vista's "fixes" it came up with was doing something to the TCP settings. I'm not exactly sure what it did, but for quite awhile it was running much faster on a regular basis. Any suggestions on settings I could possibly change"?