Wireless LAN disconnecting when lid closed - WHY ??

[ozman]

Hi all,

As the header explains - the problem is that when I close the lid of my T42p, my wireless LAN connection is dropped. I simply cannot seem to figure out WHY it does this or HOW to fix it. I would like the wireless LAN connection to remain active so that it can download my emails, etc. I have checked the power settings I could find however could not find any reference to this.

Any help and suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers.

[GomJabbar]

Check this. Right click on an open area of the desktop, choose: Properties > Screen Saver > Power... > Advanced. Under 'Power buttons': 'When I close the lid of my portable computer', does it say Standby or Hibernate? If so, then that is probably the source of your problem. Your WiFi card cannot handle going into Standby or Hibernation and maintain the connection. Of course if you choose 'Do nothing', your laptop will still be on and running at full speed (which will vary depending on whether you are using the batteries or AC power, and on your power settings).

Many users find they lose their WiFi connection when they go into Standby and then come out of Standby.

[Kyocera]

I have tried that in the past, with the "do nothing" and it didn't work, the computer stays on like it should but the wireless link disconnects. Wonder if anyone else has experienced that with T42.

[GomJabbar]

I have tried that in the past, with the "do nothing" and it didn't work, the computer stays on like it should but the wireless link disconnects.

A thought just came to me. The antenna is in the display. When you close the lid, you are putting the antenna in a bad position for reception.

EDIT: Minor correction; actually the antenna is in the edges of the lid not the display.

[Kyocera]

Yeah, that is what I was thinking too, I don't have the greatest connection at my house cause I use my neighbors access point so just moving to another room causes connection issues. Going to try and test it out one day somewhere when I have a full connection.

[Kenn]

I think this happens with my t42 as well. I never had a problem maintaining the wireless connection on my old HP notebook with the lid closed, but the IBM almost always drops, even if I'm a few feet from the access point. I figured the antenna are directional or something. My system is set to sleep on LCD close, so I don't have to deal with it anymore.

[ozman]

Thanks all for your replies - obvoiusly I'm not the only one with this problem.

I double checked the screen saver / hibernate settings and it is also set to 'do nothing' when the lid is closed. The reason I started this topic is because I sometimes like to leave my notebook on overnight for slow/large downloads and gaming, and it is eternally frustrating to find in the morning that my connection was lost ........

I'm not sure it is a signal strength issue because my connection can also drop if my notebook is right next to the wireless router.

A question someone might be able to answer is - is the antenna / wireless card linked to the display power at all? Obviously the display lighting goes off when the lid is closed, although the system otherwise continues to run at full speed. Is it possible that this is related to the loss of wireless connection?

[ctbenski]

Now I've done some research to check whether it would be possible to reproduce your problem.
Now I have a router located in the same room where I mostly use my t41, i.e. reception is "excellent". Closing the lid does nothing to the connection.
So I went outside the house until the signal was very weak, closing the lid would indeed result a couple of times in dropping the connection, but so did just turning the laptop around. So i would suggest that maybe in horizontal position and with low signal power, the antennas could be getting too low signal.

[GomJabbar]

Hmmm........So 'Do nothing' does something afterall

I really hadn't tried the 'Do nothing' setting before. I suspect that it does not disconnect the WiFi antenna, but it may remove power to the WiFi card. I do not have a WiFi connection to test this at my present location.

If you go and start a large file download, or go to a page with streaming media (such as live365.com internet radio) and then close the lid, do you get an immediate disconnect?

[wantathinkpad]

I have the same problem. In areas with 100% wireless. it is really annoying at school because it requires me to wait to sign on to the network each time

[warhead]

I have the exact same issue.

I don't think direction of the antenna would matter that much.

I do use wireless and set the display to turn off using Fn + F3... and that leaves the wireless card running fine.

I'm connected via LAN at the moment so I can't test this out, but to rule out the issue with the direction of the antenna, one can try to trigger the close lid state with the lid open.

On the top left corner part of the keyboard, there's a little black button just on the edge of where the screen is, next to the mic.
U can just push the button down with ur finger and that should make the laptop think u closed the lid (that's exactly what happens when u close the lid, a small piece of plastic sticking out actually pushes that button in).

If wireless is still turning itself off then it's not an antenna direction issue.

And why does closing the lid of the laptop, even with "do nothing" selected, make it do something. It seems to be going into a special power saving mode since the screen powers down, hdd seems to turn off and everything takes a while to get up and running again when u open the lid.
It's almost like it's going into standby mode, but not quiet.

The screen doesn't take long to turn on since u can test that with the Fn+F3 function, turn it off and with a simple keypress, the screen comes back on instantly.