Wireless LAN stealing internet connection

[Unscruffed]

Hi all. I have a laptop with a wireless network card, and a 3G wireless modem connected via USB. All worked fine, until I visited a mate and connected to the net via a LAN cable through his router. Neither the LAN card or the modem were plugged in at the time.

Since then, whenever I try to use the internet, the browser tries to connect using the Wireless LAN card. This happens with all apps (IE, Firefox, The Bat). The intenet connection also now displays a wireless connection icon that wasn't there before. I've checked the advanced settings in network connections and the internet connection is at the top of the order. I've uninstalled/re-installed the 3G device and it's software to no avail.

The only way I can use the net now, is to unplug the wireless LAN card.

Other strange behavior is that when I connect to the internet, I get a popup tooltip from the wireless LAN icon saying that it is now connected even though this has nothing to do with the internet. This has always happened though and has never affected connectivity. Also the tooltip for the internet connection always says signal strength "Excellent" even though I have a really weak 3G signal here.

Image 1: The 2 icons showing the LAN active when the WAN should be

http://www.noise-emission.com/tektips/netprobs1.png

Image 2: Network Connections > Advanced Settings

http://www.noise-emission.com/tektips/netprobs2.png

The LAN card is a D-Link DWL-G630.
The 3G Modem is a Maxom BP3-Ext (Made for Telstra/Bigpond in Australia).
Laptop is an Acer Aspire 3000 series.
OS is Windows XP Professional.

Can anyone help resolve this please?


Heaven doesn't want me, and Hell's afraid I'll take over!

 

[linney]

What have you got listed in Control Panel/ Network Connections? Can you make use of the right-click and Disable command for any extra and unwanted connections?

 

[Unscruffed]

Thanks for the reply.

Firstly, in Network Connections -> Advanced -> Optional Networking Components -> Networking Services I had:

Internet Gateway Device Discovery and Control Client

This was causing Internet Connection on Untitled to appear in Network Connections whenever the LAN Card was plugged in. Since this is for ICS (which I don't use), I removed this item which also stopped the Internet Connection on Untitled item appearing.

Unfortunately this didn't change anything else. The LAN works fine, but I can still only access the net if I unplug the LAN card.

There is nothing else installed under Optional Networking Components

Currently under Network Connections I get the following:

Without the LAN card plugged in:
Local Area Connection (Disabled, I don't use it.)
Wireless Internet

With the LAN card plugged in:
Local Area Connection (Disabled)
Wireless Internet
Wireless LAN

Finally, under Network Connections -> Advanced -> Advanced Settings I have this:

For Adaptors and Bindings the order is:
Wireless Internet
Local Area Connection
Wireless LAN
[Remote Access Connections]

Cheers.

Heaven doesn't want me, and Hell's afraid I'll take over!

 

[linney]

Are you picking up a Wireless Network from a neighbors machine or Access Point?

Are the two wireless Network Icons coming from the same SSID?

If you have your 3G wireless modem connected, and with any Wireless switch, or setting on the Laptop, turned off, does that (the Modem connection) work?

Will a System Restore to before you visited your friend solve the problem?

 

[Unscruffed]

[red]RESOLVED[/red]

OK, I finally managed to solve this. The problem lies with the priority (metric) for each NIC. If anyone is having the same problem, whether using wireless or not, try this.

Before starting, be sure to know the current IP address of each active connection.

At the command prompt type: C:\>ROUTE PRINT

In my case, this gives the following result:

Interface List
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x10003 ...00 11 95 92 82 6e ...... D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G630 Wireless Cardbus Adapter(rev.D)
0x10004 ...00 a0 c6 00 00 00 ...... WAN Driver @ 3GPP (6280)
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination        Netmask          Gateway       Interface  Metric
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0     [red]10.227.14.17[/red]    10.227.14.19	  [red]30[/red]
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0    [red]192.168.1.254[/red]     192.168.1.3	  [red]25[/red]
     10.227.14.16  255.255.255.248     10.227.14.19    10.227.14.19	  1
     10.227.14.19  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1	  1
   10.255.255.255  255.255.255.255     10.227.14.19    10.227.14.19	  1
        127.0.0.0        255.0.0.0        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1	  1
      192.168.1.0    255.255.255.0      192.168.1.3     192.168.1.3	  50
      192.168.1.3  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1	  50
    192.168.1.255  255.255.255.255      192.168.1.3     192.168.1.3	  50
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0     10.227.14.19    10.227.14.19	  1
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0      192.168.1.3     192.168.1.3	  50
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255     10.227.14.19    10.227.14.19	  1
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255      192.168.1.3     192.168.1.3	  1
Default Gateway:      [red]192.168.1.254[/red]
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:
  None

Note the red values:
10.227.14.17 = Wireless Internet with a Metric of 30
192.168.1.254 = Wireless LAN with a Metric of 25
The lower Metric gets priority, therefore the Default Gateway = 192.168.1.254 = LAN

To fix the problem, you have to change the Metric of the WAN to a higher priority (smaller value) than that of the LAN.

To accomplish this, you have to turn off the Automatic metric setting for the NIC's and set them manually. I advise setting ALL the Metrics manually, even if they are disabled. I set mine as follows:
Wireless Internet = 1
Ethernet = 20 (<= Disabled. I don't normally use this, but when I did, it upset the whole apple cart!)
Wireless LAN = 30

To manually set the Metric, follow these steps for each NIC:

1. In Network Connections right click the connection and click Properties.

2. In the list, scroll down to Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click the Properties button.

3. In the General tab, click the Advanced button at the bottom.

4. Uncheck the Automatic metric checkbox, and enter a custom value in the Interface metric box. The lower the value, the higher the priority.

5. Click OK, OK and Close to save the settings. The change should take effect immediately without any need to reboot.

Now recheck everything at the command prompt by typing C:\>ROUTE PRINT

I got the following:

Interface List
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x10003 ...00 11 95 92 82 6e ...... D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G630 Wireless Cardbus Adapter(rev.D)
0x10004 ...00 a0 c6 00 00 00 ...... WAN Driver @ 3GPP (6280)
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination        Netmask          Gateway       Interface  Metric
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0     [red]10.227.14.17[/red]    10.227.14.19	  [red]1[/red]
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0    [red]192.168.1.254[/red]     192.168.1.3	  [red]30[/red]
     10.227.14.16  255.255.255.248     10.227.14.19    10.227.14.19	  1
     10.227.14.19  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1	  1
   10.255.255.255  255.255.255.255     10.227.14.19    10.227.14.19	  1
        127.0.0.0        255.0.0.0        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1	  1
      192.168.1.0    255.255.255.0      192.168.1.3     192.168.1.3	  50
      192.168.1.3  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1	  50
    192.168.1.255  255.255.255.255      192.168.1.3     192.168.1.3	  50
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0     10.227.14.19    10.227.14.19	  1
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0      192.168.1.3     192.168.1.3	  50
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255     10.227.14.19    10.227.14.19	  1
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255      192.168.1.3     192.168.1.3	  1
Default Gateway:      [red]10.227.14.19[/red]
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:
  None

Note that the Metrics have changed accordingly, and the Default Gateway is now set to the Wireless Internet connection.

Check the internet and LAN access, and all should now work as it should. The Metric settings are also retained after rebooting and being assigned a new IP for the modem.

Cause:

This is what I think happened:
When I enabled and connected the Ethernet NIC, Windows assigned the Metric giving it highest priority. In doing so, the Wireless Internet Metric was "bumped" down the list, passing the Wireless LAN Metric along the way. This resulted in the LAN gateway having the highest priority once the Ethernet was disabled again.

Hope this is helpful to others experiencing the same problem. Thanks to linney for your assistance.

Heaven doesn't want me, and Hell's afraid I'll take over!

 

[linney]

Thank you for the very detailed feedback and solution.