wireless connection problem

[cicerone]

Hi guys,

I'm posting this because I've been having this problem and I don't know what's causing it. Maybe you could help me out. Thanks in advance.


I have a Dell XPS M1530 laptop running Vista x64 with a Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN card.

A few days ago while I using the net I lost my connection to my wireless router.
At the time I was using a Linksys WRT54G router which has always worked flawlessly with the 3-4 computers I have running on it.

I don't have any fancy networks set up, just a simple wireless network.

I tried to reconnect to the network after this failure and my computer would simply not reconnect no matter what I did. I restarted the computer, disabled/enabled the wireless card both from windows and by its power switch, I upgraded driver to latest version, even formatted my computer. Nothing worked. It just wouldn't connect.
However what was weird is that I could still connect to my school network as if nothing happened. But whenever I tried to connect to my own network the windows would freeze and be really slow, and it would just not connect.
If I tried to repair the connection it didn't say anything useful and failed. So I got upset and turned off my computer.

Next day I turn it on and it works....no problem. Of course I'm still mad because I just formatted the thing and wasted my time but it worked for a few days.

A few days later it stopped working again. And once again I could connect to my school network, but not to my own.

I tried the other computers I have on wireless and they all worked just fine as usual with the router. I figured maybe the router just hates my Dell or something even though it worked fine for 2 months. So I tried getting a new router. I got the Linksys WRT160N and have been using that. It worked fine for 2 days but now it just pulled the same sort of problem as before. If I leave it alone for a few hours it goes back to working again. What's going on!!?!

I don't know what to do. Could my card be damaged after only 2 months of use? It's still connecting fine to my school network and even other networks.
I have my network set up as WPA2 personal with AES encryption or something, whereas the school network is WPA2 enterprise.

It's a wireless issue because when I plug in a hard line everything works fine with all routers.

Please help me figure out what's wrong. I'm really getting irritated with this networking stuff.

Thanks

[johnwill]

Please supply the following info, exact make and models of the equipment please.

Name of your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
Make and exact model of the broadband modem.
Make and exact model and hardware version of the router (if a separate unit).
Model numbers can usually be obtained from the label on the device.
Connection type, wired or wireless.
If wireless, encryption used, (none, WEP, WPA, or WPA2)
Version and patch level of Windows on all affected machines, i.e. XP (Home or Pro), SP1-SP2-SP3, Vista (Home, Business, Ultimate), etc.
The Internet Browser in use, IE, Firefox, Opera, etc.




Please give an exact description of your problem symptoms, including the exact text of any error messages.

• If you're using a wireless connection, have you tried a direct connection with a cable to see if that changes the symptoms?
• For wireless issues, have you disabled all encryption on the router to see if you can connect that way?
• Have you connected directly to the broadband modem to see if this is a router or modem/ISP issue?
• If there are other computers on the same network, are they experiencing the same issue, or do they function normally?

On any affected computer, I'd also like to see this:

Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD (COMMAND for W98/WME) to open a command prompt:

Type the following commands on separate lines, following each one with the Enter key:

PING 206.190.60.37

PING yahoo.com

NBTSTAT -n

IPCONFIG /ALL

Right click in the command window and choose Select All, then hit Enter.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.