Vista and Wireless Adapters - Help?

[Mitch G]

I've poked around google and Microsoft for a solution to this problem with no luck and instead just growing frustration. So, I thought I would take a shot in the dark and see if the combined intelligence here contains a solution to the "Vista wireless adapter doesn't work after sleep" problem.

In a nutshell, here's the problem:

Configuration:
Vista laptop (Toshiba)
Built-in Realtek wireless (running in 802.11g mode)
D-Link Wireless router/DHCP server (a couple of years old)
DHCP leases are 1 week long.

Scenario:
Close laptop cover (thus putting it to sleep).
Open the laptop at some later time (thus waking the laptop).
Pray that the wireless connection will be resumed.
Sometimes the connection comes up fine.
More often than not, it doesn't. It comes up in "limited" mode where it appears to have a connection with the router but not with the internet.
I have yet to find a sequence of steps that always fixes the problem. Sometimes disconnecting and reconnecting works. Sometimes disconnecting and reconnecting a few times works. Sometimes, reseting the adapter works. Generally, rebooting works. But, rebooting everytime the laptop is awakened from sleep is not an acceptable solution, imo.

Anyone else experience this and find a solution?
I have downloaded a hotfix that supposedly fixes this problem which is supposedly caused by losing the default gateway setting.
But, it doesn't seem to fix things.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,


Mitch

[gplasky]

In Device Manager for your wireless try unchecking "Allow computer to turn off this device to save power."

Gerry

[Mitch G]

Thanks for the suggestion, but it's already been unchecked.


Mitch

[reggie14]

Are you using WPA? I have an old DI-624 and I'm pretty sure WPA support on it is screwed up. I had the exact same thing happen to me with an Inspiron 6000 under XP SP2. I replaced the router and that fixed it.

[Mitch G]

I started wondering if it's a router thing.
The Vista laptop replaced an XP that required restarting the wireless often as well.
But, I have a Lenovo running XP and it seems to reconnect without a problem - but maybe that's some smartness in the IBM ThinkVantage software.

Heck, maybe its time to get a new wireless N router anyway.


Mitch

[reggie14]

I think the various wireless chipsets may be more or less susceptible to the problem. I can't really say if you are experiencing a router problem. I'm curious though, what Dlink router are you using and do you have encryption turned on?

[Mitch G]

Hehe, I thought I had said which router I was using since you nailed it.
It's a DI-624 with WPA enabled.

I think I'll actually just pick up a Linksys G router and see if things are better - they're not too expensive
And, even if it doesn't fix things, I can at least play around with the dd-wrt software that's out there.


Mitch

[steven017]

Have you looked at this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

It refers to not being able to get an IP address via DHCP with Vista. Have you checked to see what your IP address is in "Limited" mode? If it's not in your private network range, your router is not assigning your computer a proper IP address. So, basically, if your router does not support the DHCP BROADCAST flag, your computer can't get an IP address. There is a registry fix for this. See the knowledge base article for the details.

Incidentally, I had so much trouble with wireless networking with my Vista machine that I've sort of given up on it for now. The drivers just aren't there yet for so many devices. I tried five wireless NICs, and all had trouble such as you mention. For me, the solution was to use a wireless access point I had lying around to connect to my router and then connect to it by cable. This gives me a nice stable connection, without any more trouble with Vista and wireless.

Steve

[Mitch G]

I'll look at that article a bit further, but I don't think that's the problem since the laptop does get a proper IP address assigned.
But, maybe I'll run WireShark and capture some of the traffic to see what's going on.

And I hear what you are saying about the Vista drivers issues, but this is the built in wireless chip that came with the laptop. You would think that Toshiba would have made sure it worked before it left the design house.

And, you're saying that you attached a wireless access point to your vista machine, right? If so, that won't really work since we use this laptop on the couch.


Mitch

[Mitch G]

FYI: Things seem to be working pretty well now.
As I mentioned, I had installed the hotfix for the default gateway problem a while ago, but I did uninstall it when things were still not working. But a few days ago (before starting this thread), I did reinstall the hotfix.
So, maybe I had some problem the first time I installed the hotfix.
But, who knows, maybe I tweaked something else along the way that fixed things.


Mitch