A31p Wifi troubles..

[malachont]

Hi all... long time no write, its good to see others are still punching in occasionally..

I have a recurring problem with my A31p. It has Win2k preinstalled, and it seems that its Wifi reception is noticeably terrible compared to XP. That is the only conclusion I came to by way of elimination.
I have severe problems of disconnections on my home Wifi and on another one I tested it doesn't even connect. It nearly always 'sees' the network and reports >90% signal strength, but connects only once in a while. When I try to connect with Access connections, it says 'failed to connect' after 1-2 minutes.

I think this problem may have started after one of the last Lenovo update cycles I ran, but its just a guess.



I have tried:

1. Updating all drivers to latest (win2k and lenovo)
2. Moving the laptop to 5 feet off the wifi router (only marginally improves things!)
3. ipconfig /release, /renew /flushdns
4. disabling software firewall, cleaning cache, tempfiles etc.
5. Reinstalling older access connections and even connecting without it (slightly improves).


All the above doesn't really help. Then I saw that a different laptop
(HP+Xp Pro) connects to the same wifi without problems (they were both sitting side by side) so I installed XP on a different partition and it instantly connected, until I updated it to have Access connections and the latest drivers, then it exhibited similar troubles that the 2k had. However I don't want to run XP on it as a solution.

When the problem occurs, an Ipconfig /all gives very strange results (to me at least):
empty values.

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : IBM High Rate Wireless LAN MiniPCI
mbo Card
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : xxxxx (I blanked that out)
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . :



The A31p has 2GHz cpu, 512MB, 80GB, built in minipci IBM wifi card
(B standard).

My router is a 3Com G standard with 128bit WPA key, but I don't think that it is the problem as the laptop had the same symptoms on another router, in both cases reception strength was good but it didn't connect.
The router is configured to allow the MAC of this laptop and has auto DHCP/L2TP cable modem link. Other Wifi PC's access it without problems and identical TCP/IP configuration (everything set to automatic).

Finally I took it to IBM service lab and they said there were no problems with it, as it connected to their wifi. It sometimes does connect but not consistently. I'll have to take it back but thought that someone might have a hint.

What's so special about XP's built in wifi drivers that makes them superior to the 'native' lenovo drivers of much newer version?
I used the same TCP/IP setup that's on the 2k...


Thank you...

[schen]

How far back did you go on the Access Connections? I've had similar problems after moving to AC 4.x, so all our machines are on AC 3.x without issues.

[malachont]

Hmm yes... but how do I get this version?
everyhwhere else I look its over 4.x...?

currently I use Win2k Wifi without access connections at all. And it seems to work, but I do recall the XP OS responded faster; not to mention in local network folder browsing.

Thanks