Dropped wireless connections requires reboot

[ThinkTay]

anyone test disabling LAN?

[creed_mty]

anyone test disabling LAN?

I always have wireless and ethernet together, so i have had a similar problem when resuming and all i did is to turn off the wi-fi switch and turn it back on and i recover connection after several secs. i think for about 10+ secs.

[gere123]

Anyone try this?

http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

[RaviN]

Anyone try this?

http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

I tried the equivalent for my T60 which has a different wireless card than the one in the document above. No change in behavior on plug/unplug - still conks out with regularity.

[dlp]

Anyone try this?

http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

I did it for the ethernet, even though I have an Atheros wireless card in my T60p widescreen. It seems to have done the trick.

[gere123]

Anyone try this?

http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

I did it for the ethernet, even though I have an Atheros wireless card in my T60p widescreen. It seems to have done the trick.

I'm trying it now also... so far, no disconnects. Will check in again if anything else happens.

[sega]

Anyone try this?

http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

Well, I bought new widescreen T60p back in December 2006. I've got Intel 3945abg wireless card and I had exactly the same problem with dropped connection as many people here have. Only reboot could help me to restore the connection. By the way I didn't notice any correlation between the wireless connection issue and plugging/unplugging AC.

But then I've read the post above and followed all recommendations. It looks like in my case it fixed the problem. At least I don't have any issue with the wireless for about a week.

[jordanjw23]

so far so good....i tried it and it worked....i think its got to be an atheros issue cause of the pre N

lets see if it lasts

thanks

[RaviN]

Anyone try this?

http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

Hmm. This seems to work. >20 power connect/disconnect cycles and, so far, no loss of wireless connectivity. I would previously lose connectivity sometime between the first and fifth plug/unplug. System also appears to reconnect after Standby and Hibernate. LAN connection establishes when connected and wireless picks up after LAN disconnect.

Setup: T60 widescreen, wireless managed under XP, Access Connections software uninstalled, LAN card driver adjusted per document, Atheros wireless card adjusted equivalently to card described in document (Atheros driver does not offer as many options).

Not declaring victory yet but am encouraged for the first time in a long while!

[Scratch]

Step #10 seems to be the culprit per this thread from last week

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

I had made the other settings changes some time ago for solving other problems with license management software, etc. I had disbled this power mgmt feature before, but somewhere along the line it was changed back to the default to allow power down by some unseen force.

[jordanjw23]

Scratch

on the atheros card, It seems as in the atheros card there is no power management....step 10. Instead, you have to turn the wireless power save value to OFF and the ethernet power manager to disabled. That did the trick for me

[Scratch]

Good point jjw23. I sometimes forget the differences. I have a few systems with the Atheros/IBM card and had to go down that tweak path as well.

I'm still amazed by the number of difficulties that I've had with these systems that all revolve around something as basic as Power Mgmt on a laptop.

[RaviN]

I think the comprehensive power management disabling fixed the problem. Many thanks to the group.

[ugo]

I exeperienced a frequent wireless drop when using battery with an X60s.

I disabled
"Enable automatic wireless LAN radio control"
in Access Connections -> Configure -> Global Settings.

In my case this solved the problem.

Hope it helps.

[tyito2000]

I think I have isolated the issue to the OS, Win XP. The same connection problems happens with my Thinkpad and my three year old Sony VAIO desktop. The problem appears to be caused by Win XP while running bluetooth. When I disconnect the bluetooth adapter, everything runs fine and there are no connection issues.

I understand this is not the perfect solution, as I rely on bluetooth peripherals. But, since the same problem happens with two different hardware manufacturer's, this appears to be a bug/issue with Microsoft's bluetooth stack. So far, I have scoured Microsoft's KB and Google with no pertinent solutions.

My only workaround is to change power states with the bluetooth adapter disconnected. The internet connection will remain connected.

[ThinkTay]

I believe many of us experienced the problem with the bluetooth antenna off actually. It works fine for me now, after the above advice, however I found that by turning off the LAN I also circumvented the problem.

Seems to be plenty of work arounds

[drwho9437]

I have a WS T60 with atheros N card. (8744-5BU)

This is what I have noticed, coming out of hibernation the wireless sometimes is disabled. Typically when this happens it finds no networks at first, then finds all the networks but the one it was logged onto before the hibernation cycle.

I would like to know a reliable way to reproduce the issue, so that I can definitively test solutions.

The closest I have come to this is a restart plugged in to AC power. This results in wireless that works. Then I place the machine in hibernation (still plugged in). I then remove the AC power and turn it back on. This at least sometimes results in the type of loss noted above, log out and log on/disable/repair will not fix the issue once this has happened.

This method does not seem 100% reproducible. I would speculate that it causes the problem because of the state of the machine is not the same before and after hibernation, and something misses the state change and then goes off and panics or dies. (software)

If you have a definitive way to reproduce it or have fixed similar behavior on your machine of same spec, I would be interested.

I have removed Access Connections after trying a few settings with the method outlined above in the Access Connections software. I also tried disabling the "allow this device to be turned off" for the wired Ethernet. It however still disappears from the device manager when the system is unplugged from AC power. I believe this removal of device without notice that is often in the windows error log could in principle be the source of the problem as it might corrupt the network stack.

Does anyone know what causes it to be removed from the device manager?

I have not tried power setting on my atheros nic yet but might try that next.

Again, I am looking for a way that reproduces the problem ideally 100% of the time, and any solutions people think work.

I am asking this because I found the thread up to this point full of confusing information and "I think this works" ideas.

Thanks very much.

[drwho9437]

After my last post I continued experimenting.

The "deep smart power down" listed in the PDF is was appears to let the Gigabit disapear from the system. Since this is done on plug/unplug and affects the network stack I am hoping this is the culprit.

I am still interested as to the post above's info, but I'm not going to keep trying to make it die unless someone posts some definitive way of doing so. So far after disabling the power management on the Gigabit adapter, I have not had any wireless deaths.

I also removed Access Connections, but there were several wireless deaths after, that so I do not believe that was the cause. It certainly cannot be the sole cause.

For now power management is still on for the wireless card.

[laundromatt]

why don't you guys try an intel card, with the appropriate drivers? maybe that'll fix the problem.

[drwho9437]

I do have an old intel wireless mini-pci in my old laptop, but I'd rather find the source of the problem of course.

That will of course be my method of last resort. I have some hopes that it is completely cause by the deep sleep function of the gigabit Ethernet. But without a systematic test it is hard to know for sure.

[mtomd]

With the XP pre-install I always had this problem with the wireless not working with my Artheos A/B/G/N card. I installed Vista 3 weeks ago, and I haven't had a single issue with the wireless not working and needing to reboot. Maybe it's the XP drivers?

[drwho9437]

Clearly it is a driver power management issue, so if you are running Vista it could indeed fix if the driver code base is different, or Vista could just handle power management differently enough never to cause the sequence of things that tigers the problem. In any case that is nice to know but does not solve the issue for those who do not have Vista available yet. But thanks for noting it. It good to know if and when I move to vista these problem might disappear.

[Overlord66]

After my last post I continued experimenting.

The "deep smart power down" listed in the PDF is was appears to let the Gigabit disapear from the system. Since this is done on plug/unplug and affects the network stack I am hoping this is the culprit.

I am still interested as to the post above's info, but I'm not going to keep trying to make it die unless someone posts some definitive way of doing so. So far after disabling the power management on the Gigabit adapter, I have not had any wireless deaths.

I also removed Access Connections, but there were several wireless deaths after, that so I do not believe that was the cause. It certainly cannot be the sole cause.

For now power management is still on for the wireless card.

I was having the same problem as you with my laptop when i first got it. I followed the instructions in the link above and have not had a single issue since the changes. The issue is very strange but it's fixed now so I'm not going to worry about it.

[hoya]

same problem on my 87445BU - oddly enough installing the 2005 C++ Redistributable Package fixed the problem for me:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

note: I was seeing SidebySide errors in the event log before installing this update. if you are not seeing SidebySide errors it might not be worth installing the package.