T500: Access Connections and windows wifi management issue

[vadwiser]

Hello all,

This is my very first post here so please beare with me.
My T500:
Product: ThinkPad T500 2056-AK5
Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium x64 (but same problem on Ultimate x64)

Original description: Based 2056-4RG: T9400(2.53GHz), 3GB RAM, 160GB 7200rpm HD, 15.4in 1680x1050 LCD, 256MB ATI Radeon HD3650, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11agn wireless, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ether, UltraNav, Sec Chip, FPR, 9c Li-Ion, WinVista Business 32
The wifi NIC is Intel 5100 AGN, the gigabit is 82567LM. I bought also an Ericsson F3507g Mobile Broadband modem. All are working as supposed.
The win7 is freshly installed from recovery dvd's, all updates, both Lenovo and Micro$oft are up to date.

The problem: Access connections seems to be "behind" the automated wifi management of windows 7. I have two, three profiles saved for may home wifi network, my office wifi network and so on. My home network has settings like 192.168.7.xx, no encryption, only MAC registration, the office network has 192.168.4.xx, encryption WPA, therefore a switch is needed everyday between these.
The problem is that AC doesn't do that, eventually doesn't even switch between locations at all. In AC->Tools location switching is properly set up
The T500 connects let say at home, then when I starts in the office it connects to the office network but still using my home IP (192.168.7.xx) even if I saved in the profiles different IP numbers for both location. I have tried stopping the windows wifi connection service but then AC stop either.
This seems to me like windows try and force reconnect to the new network with the old settings, even before AC could interfere with its settings saved in profiles.
Only 2 things I can do:
1. in windows' wireless network and sharing center I choose to start manually these networks, then start them manually from AC;
2. Stop the network as connected automatically by windows (with wrong IP settings) then restart it from AC;

Both these are frustrating because my good old T60 running winXP did this automatically, without my inference.
Could anyone help me out of these, please?

[pjk]

I have had a lot of trouble over the past few years with Thinkpads using 4.x and 5.x versions of Access Connections that have a habit of "holding onto" static IP addresses.

As you describe, you successfully connect to a profile that uses a static IP, and then you try to connect to a different profile that uses DHCP (or a different static IP), and it holds onto that old static IP forever. (sometimes no amount of ACC disconnect/connect, reboot, etc will help)

Also, I vaguely recall doing some troubleshooting in the past where I concluded that ACC was still requesting a DHCP address even if it was set for static IP. If the DHCP server responded with an offer of an IP that differed from the IP statically configured in that profile, ACC failed with some type of error because of the mismatch.

I had some (though not 100%) luck using a script I wrote that tried to force DHCP on/off using NETSH commands. One complication of that approach is that you may need admin rights to run such a script successfully (I don't know about Win7, the Tpads I was working with were running XP), so you have to run the scripts as an admin user. (Perhaps in Win7 you can just answer some UAC prompts to accomplish the same thing)

I ended up doing a workaround of just using DHCP on the formerly statically-configured networks - since the modern versions of ACC seem to behave much better if they aren't frequently switching from static to DHCP configurations.

Below are some extensive notes I wrote at the time I was trying to address the issue - this revolves around trying to force the DHCP mode properly. Hopefully they will be helpful to someone:

Code: Select all

1) netsh diag sh adapter
	Find name of likely ethernet interface


2) netsh int sh int   (netsh interface show interface)

	If more than one "Local Area Connection, proceed to 2A, otherwise proceed to 3)


2a) ipconfig /all

	- Look for "Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection"
	- If more than 1 entry, look under "description" for ethernet adapter hardware
	- Note interface name, ie "Local Area Connection 2"

3) netsh int ip set address name="Local Area Connection 2" source=dhcp

   (ABBREVIATED VERSION: netsh int ip set address local dhcp )

   (TO SET STATIC: netsh int ip set address name="Local Area Connection 1" 
                   source=static addr=[IP] mask=[MASK] gateway=[GW IP] gwmetric=[ROUTE PRI])

   (TO SET STATIC - ABBREVIATED SYNTAX:   
                   netsh int ip set address local static [IP] [MASK] [GW IP] [METRIC])



=======================================================================================

C:\>netsh diag sh adapter

Network Adapters
     1. [00000003] Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet
     2. [00000011] Bluetooth LAN Access Server Driver
     3. [00000013] Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

=================================
C:\>netsh int sh int

Admin State    State          Type             Interface Name
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enabled                       Dedicated        Local Area Connection
Enabled                       Dedicated        Wireless Network Connection
Enabled                       Dedicated        Local Area Connection 2
Enabled                       Dedicated        Local Area Connection 3
Enabled                       Internal         Internal
Enabled                       Loopback         Loopback

=================================
C:\>netsh diag show ip

IP Address
     3. [00000013] Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
        IPAddress = 192.168.1.11

=================================
C:\>netsh diag show gateway

Default Gateways
     3. [00000013] Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
        DefaultIPGateway = 192.168.1.1 Same Subnet

=================================
C:\>netsh diag show dns

DNS Servers
     3. [00000013] Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
        DNSServerSearchOrder = 1.2.3.4
                               5.6.7.8