T42 WiFi turning itself off

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imref · #1 Post by **imref** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:21 pm

Starting yesterday the internal 802.11 wireless radio on my T42 is powering itself off for no apparent reason. I have to hit function-F5 and power it back on, but after about 3-5 minutes or so, it powers itself back off.

This has happened in both stand-alone and when attached to a port-replicator.

Help!! Has anyone seen this before? All patches are current, I haven't installed anything new in recent days.

#2 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:41 pm

Could this be the cause and solution?

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/w ... 006205.htm

imref · #3 Post by **imref** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:59 pm

The wireless adapter in the T42 is turning itself off, while connected to the same AP I've been using for 2 months. It isn't poor connection quality, it's actually turning off the internal wireless radio.

#4 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 8:09 pm

After I posted the above, I began thinking you might have a hardware problem. Your card may be failing. Hopefully someone else will have a better answer.

jsteele · #5 Post by **jsteele** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 6:45 pm

I suspect I have a similar problem. For the past week or so when the system restarts or resumes from hibernate/standby the WiFi connection is down. The panel indicator shows the radio is on but the Thinkpad Connection Status display says the radio is on but not associated. But Fn-F5 sometimes shows the radio is OFF and pressing the On button does not turn it on. Like you this wifi card (a Atheros 11A/B/G Adapter II) has been in use for about a year connecting to the same accesspoint for at least that long.

Something has changed and it isn't clear what. Ususally shutdown/restart corrects the problem but not always. I've resorted to restoring from the last checkpoint and that almost always clears it. Yet there does not appear to be anything dibilitating installed after the checkpoint.

The recent system changes are the installation of IE 7 Final and several Microsoft/Thinkpad updates:

Software Distribution Service 2.0
Windows IDNMigrationAPIs
Windows NLSDownlevelMapping
Windows XP KB915865
Thinkpad Keyboard Customizer Utility
Thinkpad EasyJect Utility

Combine this with a strange problem that has cropped up for the past two days that attempts to Hibernate or Standby fail because "there are not enough resources to complete the API" and I'm beginning to think Microsoft has slipped us a ringer in one of the updates.

phelix · #6 Post by **phelix** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:54 pm

I've had this happen on my T43; the solution was a reboot and everything's fine again.

TechLee · #7 Post by **TechLee** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 4:14 pm

It also depends on the O/S version and version of access connections you may be running. On many systems running windows 2000 we found that you could not run any version other than the 3.8.2 version of access connections, In addition there were instances of profile corruption. The 4.1.1 version so far seems stable with XP- note both of the O/S versions we tested are professional. The wireless drivers that seemed stable on the 42 & 43's are the 3.8.2 wireless pack. you can goto the lenovo website and dl the software installer. Use the utility to remove and load the drivers. Recomend that you only use the 4.1.1 if you are running XP. Out of the 40-60 T43 we've setup so far about 6 were noted to have defective system boards. This resulted in system hangs and the screen became wavy with locked keyboard... Many on the defective units were returned DOA after resending the first one out to tech support 3 times with no results....

jsteele · #8 Post by **jsteele** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:28 pm

Interesting but I' use WinXP Pro and have been using Access Connections 4.12 and the 4.1.102.147 driver set since they were released months ago. In my case this problem just cropped up last week --- I've never had a problem with these drivers or Access Connections before now.

ps401t3 · #9 Post by **ps401t3** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 8:59 pm

I had the exact same problem. I removed the Access Connections application and it has worked fine since.

jsteele · #10 Post by **jsteele** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:01 pm

I don't understand why that would correct it. I've had AC 4.12 running fine since it was released months ago and all of a sudden it fails. It looks like something else has changed that has broken AC 4.12?

ps401t3 · #11 Post by **ps401t3** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 8:37 am

My problem started when I installed the most recent version of the software. I saw on another thread where someone else tried removing this software so I tried it and it worked great.

ps401t3 · #12 Post by **ps401t3** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:51 am

I found this on IBM's site:

Symptom

Notebook users who create wireless connection profiles in Microsoft Wireless Zero Configuration (WZC) observe that the radio is powered off, and / or their connection is dropped after only two minutes.

Affected configuration

Any Notebook computer running Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Me, or Microsoft Windows XP, with any 4.x version of Access Connections (AC) installed, and using Microsoft Wireless Zero Configuration service to manage all wireless profiles.

Solution

This will be fixed with the future release of Access Connections version 4.2. There are three different potential workaround solutions:

Create wireless profiles in Access Connections and use AC to manage connections instead of WZC.

Launch Access Connections, and from the file menu select "Configure", then select "Global Settings". Uncheck the box next to, "Enable automatic wireless LAN radio control". Accept the changes and close the application.

Uninstall Access Connections.
Additional information

Any Notebook user who has Access Connections 4.x installed, but does not use Access Connections to manage their wireless profiles may observe that when they connect to their Access Point via a configuration managed by Microsoft's Wireless Zero Configuration service, that the radio is powered off after two minutes, and their connection is dropped when this occurs. This only occurs when a user manages all of their connections with the WZC service, and with Access Connections installed on the system but not used to manage the system's wireless connection configurations.

and this... (note the release date)

ThinkVantage Access Connections for Windows 2000 and XP - Notebooks

Note: Install the wireless drivers as described in the Wireless driver requirements table.
The new version 4.xx supports over-installation on all previous versions and automatically converts the existing profiles to new format, but if you need to revert back to the previous version (3.82 or earlier), it will not restore the profiles. For restoring back the profiles for the old version, read Hints and Tips in the README file.

File details

Version: 4.21
Release Date: 2006/10/24

File link File size File description

79cn52ww.exe 11,859,496 ThinkVantage Access Connections (without wireless drivers)

79cn52ww.txt 55,989 README for ThinkVantage Access Connections (without wireless drivers)

laz · #13 Post by **laz** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:07 pm

This question has come up many, many times here. A little searching on the forums will find the answer.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=#173736

T42 WiFi turning itself off

T42 WiFi turning itself off

Re: T42 WiFi turning itself off

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