meganoumenal
Technical User
I have a Sony Vaio PCG-FXA63 running XP sp2 with a Linksys WPC55AG ver 1.1 wireless card. I move around with it a lot, from my home wireless network to various coffee shops and hotspots at the local university. In just about every place it works fine.
But there is one coffee shop where a very strange pattern has been repeating itself over the past few months. I go in, boot up, and get perfectly good and fast wireless service for a few minutes, and then something stops. Though the "Wireless Network Connection" icon on the lower right hand says that the signal is good, it's no longer flashing as it does when it's working, and the connection doesn't work.
Even more strangely is that once this happens, I'll often try to disconnect from the network so I can reconnect, by selecting "View available wireless networks" option and getting the "Choose a wireless network" box. If I click "disconnect," very often it will just hang there and I'll have to X out the box. Doing this leads to an error message that says the program has "failed to respond." Ending it at that point causes the Wireless network icon in the lower right to disappear entirely, even though the lights on the physical card are still blinking. Trying to "Disable" or "Repair" it at that point also does nothing. The only way to start over is to physically remove the card and reinsert it. (The "Safely remove hardware" wizard doesn't help either--when I select the card, the program just stops responding again.)
Once I restart in the manner described, I can sometimes get it working again, though usually not for as long as it worked the first time. If I repeat the procedure the time available online seems to decrease further. This makes it seem like a hardware problem, but I wonder if maybe there's something wrong with the signal at the coffee shop that could be causing. I've noticed, for example, that there are quite a lot of other wireless networks (something like eleven) from a nearby apartment building that come up in this location. Could they be competing with my signal somehow and mixing things up? If so is there a way to stop them from being picked up?
I've tried messing with all kinds of options and settings to see if anything makes a difference, and so far nothing. Any thoughts on what I might be missing would be greatly appreciated.
Ben
But there is one coffee shop where a very strange pattern has been repeating itself over the past few months. I go in, boot up, and get perfectly good and fast wireless service for a few minutes, and then something stops. Though the "Wireless Network Connection" icon on the lower right hand says that the signal is good, it's no longer flashing as it does when it's working, and the connection doesn't work.
Even more strangely is that once this happens, I'll often try to disconnect from the network so I can reconnect, by selecting "View available wireless networks" option and getting the "Choose a wireless network" box. If I click "disconnect," very often it will just hang there and I'll have to X out the box. Doing this leads to an error message that says the program has "failed to respond." Ending it at that point causes the Wireless network icon in the lower right to disappear entirely, even though the lights on the physical card are still blinking. Trying to "Disable" or "Repair" it at that point also does nothing. The only way to start over is to physically remove the card and reinsert it. (The "Safely remove hardware" wizard doesn't help either--when I select the card, the program just stops responding again.)
Once I restart in the manner described, I can sometimes get it working again, though usually not for as long as it worked the first time. If I repeat the procedure the time available online seems to decrease further. This makes it seem like a hardware problem, but I wonder if maybe there's something wrong with the signal at the coffee shop that could be causing. I've noticed, for example, that there are quite a lot of other wireless networks (something like eleven) from a nearby apartment building that come up in this location. Could they be competing with my signal somehow and mixing things up? If so is there a way to stop them from being picked up?
I've tried messing with all kinds of options and settings to see if anything makes a difference, and so far nothing. Any thoughts on what I might be missing would be greatly appreciated.
Ben