Strange wireless antics

[mrhoohah]

I've spent many, many hours since mid-October of last year trying to find the solution to this problem, most forums that contain the question trail on and on about the same steps and eventually it seems that everyone involved gets fed up or forgets about it and nothing ever gets answered. I'm a fairly advanced user and have fixed nearly every software problem I've come across in Windows XP, but this one has me stumped hard. My girlfriend's laptop had this problem immediately after connecting to a new NETGEAR router via ethernet in October '08 and it has been this way ever since. The wireless icon in the taskbar says "One or more wireless networks were detected" etc., and as soon as you try to view the list of connections, it says "No wireless networks were found within range" and upon clicking "refresh network list," it instantaneously says, again, "No wireless networks were found within range." I've updated, rolled-back, uninstalled and reinstalled drivers; I've performed every conceivable operation in the device manager concerning the wireless and networking adapters; fiddled with the Wireless Zero service; and turned the wireless switch on the laptop off and on. I've tried NetStumbler with limited success, and it certainly isn't a complete solution. Any ideas?

 

[Guest]

See if there's a network management utility supplied by the wireless adapter manufacturer and untick the box in Windows Network Connections which offers to let Windows managing the connection.

In later versions of XP and in Vista Windows takes a sort of nannying approach to your wireless connection and doesn't seem as flexible as most manufacturer supplied utilities.

 

[mrhoohah]

Aha! I thought I'd have to leave this one open for quite some time to get an answer, I should have checked back sooner. Thanks very much, this is exactly what I needed. No more problems!

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

For future reference, I've actually seen a setting in device manager on some cards where they turn the card off till you change it. I hate how companies think their wireless software is better than the windows software. LEAVE IT ALONE!!!! Sorry, but as a tech I hate having to spend 10-20 minutes finding a stupid setting when what I need to do should take 5 seconds.

 

[mrhoohah]

Guh, I agree, it's so maddening to find out what you needed was just a single click's worth of work, after fruitlessly going through 30 different remedies you know of. Thanks for the tip!

 

[uncle_ben]

Is this only an issue with Netgear routers? I never used them and I was not aware of the problem. Never encountered this with Linksys routers for example. Blind luck?

 

[mrhoohah]

Possibly, I've always preferred Linksys, pretty hassle-free, those.

 

[hctim57]

Not saying the answer is always simple but when I had the same problem I took it into a fix-it guy. After one minute he found a switch on the side of the notebook that somehow had been switched off preventing receiving any wireless broadcasts. Some machines may have the switch off feature on one of the shift keys. Best of luck.

 

[wvriverjumper]

Aha! I thought I'd have to leave this one open for quite some time to get an answer, I should have checked back sooner. Thanks very much, this is exactly what I needed. No more problems!

this is exactly the problem i am having, but unable to follow the steps to fix it

 

[wvriverjumper]

For future reference, I've actually seen a setting in device manager on some cards where they turn the card off till you change it. I hate how companies think their wireless software is better than the windows software. LEAVE IT ALONE!!!! Sorry, but as a tech I hate having to spend 10-20 minutes finding a stupid setting when what I need to do should take 5 seconds.[/quotem

could you break this fix down for me a little further, it is exactly my same situation

 

[wvriverjumper]

See if there's a network management utility supplied by the wireless adapter manufacturer and untick the box in Windows Network Connections which offers to let Windows managing the connection.

In later versions of XP and in Vista Windows takes a sort of nannying approach to your wireless connection and doesn't seem as flexible as most manufacturer supplied utilities.

could you break this fix down for me a little more detailed, it is exactly the problem i am having