[RESOLVED] Wireless Connection Dropping

[dunedin]

Hello everyone

Inspiron 8600
XP SP2 fully patched
Dell True Mobile

My daughter is in Australia on holiday and is having a problem with her internet connection. She is trying to use the above laptop in a chatroom to speak to us here in the UK

When she first boots up using the wireless connection in the chatroom the machine detects 2 wireless networks, a private network and the chatroom. She can connect to the chatroom, signal is very good. The internet is incredibly slow and will not open a second tab in IE7. It struggles to send a plain text email and an attachment is out of the question.

After 30mins or so the machine starts dropping the connection. Occasionally a reboot will allow her to connect again but it does not last any time at all. Very often the only network discovered is the private one (it is always there) and a refresh does not discover the chatroom. When she goes back the next day she can connect again, but the problem is repeated in exactly the same way.

It is not easy to troubleshoot this by phone. I have checked that Network Adapter/Power Management "Allow the computer to turn off the device" is not checked

I am wondering about Wireless Zero Configuration Service. It is set to "Automatic" Could this be causing the problem? I think it is needed to discover wireless networks. Is this correct?

XP itself is running as fast as usual, it is just the internet which is struggling to open a page at all.
Wireless was working fine here before she left.

Any suggestions will be most gratefully received. Please bear in mind that I will have to do this by phone and my daughter does not know her way around XP very well.

Thank you all very much

Elaine

[Steve R Jones]

Way out of my area...But, can she go to another location (Café or Hotel) and try out their service?

[dunedin]

Thanks Steve

As far as I know this is the only one she has found so far which allows you to use your own machine.

All the other cafes are "pay to use their machines" which are pretty beat-up with some of the equipment broken

Elaine

[dunedin]

For anyone finding this on a search, here is the solution to my particular problem.

I thought it might be the Wireless Zero Configuration Service trying to connect to the other "Private" network which it had discovered, so last night I managed to talk my daughter through the following.

First you need to find out whether Windows or your Network Card`s Utility is managing the wireless adapter. The following instructions are from the Dell site but will work for everyone.

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...4&l=en&s=gen#2

If it turns out to be your Network Card`s Utility, go to Services and disable the Wireless Zero Configuration Service. You don`t need it at all, so leave it disabled.

If it turns out to be Windows, you need the Wireless Zero Configuration Service to be running in order to connect.
To stop it continually searching for another network and dropping your connection (and making IE impossible to use),
Once you are connected to the network you want to use, go to Services and disable the Wireless Zero Configuration Service.

IMPORTANT
You must set it back to "Automatic" before you try to connect again or you will not be able to search for or find any network at all.

I hope this will help someone else with this problem

Elaine