wireless problems on T40 with Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B

[cahooa]

I feel like I have the most frustrating problem ever, and I would really appreciate the help anyone has to offer. The problem is with the wireless on my T40. The problem is two fold, the first and most annoying problem is that when I am on a public network, like at school, my wireless connection is dropped and reset every 30 seconds to 15 minutes. The wireless works fine at home. The second half of the problem is that access connections does not even recognize my wireless is working, at all. At the moment I have Windows configure the wireless. I can be connected and hit Fn-F5 and Access connections will report the wireless radio being off, even though it is clearly on and connected. Nothing changes if I turn the wireless 'on' in access connections.

I believe I have all of the latest drivers and updates. I am running Windows XP sp3, Device Manager says I have the Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI adapter, with driver version 1.2.4.41. The device manager can turn the wireless radio off and on, unlike access connections.

If anyone has any advice that can help me solve my problem it would be greatly appreciated. It is so so so annoying when my wireless connection resets every 30 seconds!

[GACrabill]

.... Device Manager says I have the Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI adapter, with driver version 1.2.4.41. ....

I also have a T40 with the 2100 3B adapter and driver version 1.2.4.41.

If I had your problem,
1) I would download the latest Access Connections from Lenovo,
2) then I would uninstall whatever AC is currently installed,
3) then I would check to see if everything worked properly with Windows controlling the wireless and Access Connections not installed,
4) if everything works with Windows controlling the wireless, then I would assume that the 2100 3B driver is working correctly,
5) then I would install the Access Connections that was downloaded and hope that everything now worked properly.

There have been discussions in the past in this Forum about which should be done first when there are wireless problems .... re-install the driver, re-install Access Connections, uninstall both and then re-install both ..... different approaches have worked for others.

[Mornsgrans]

On a R51 with the Intel Wireless 2100b i had the problem, too, after installing Service Pack 3.

A small solution was installing a new wireless driver via the device-manager.
In the properties of the wireless device i selected the "Driver"-tab, "Install driver" - "Do not automatically search" - "Select driver from a list" and got shown there two or three 2100b - drivers.
I tried all one after the other but the connection always broke down after a while.
Sometimes i got a message that i was connected to an unsecure network but it really was secured by WPA. Otherwise Windows told that i was connected with WPA to a WPA2 - network.

So i installed my windows from the recovery-partition completely new.
After that i did the following steps:
1. install all Windows patches and Service Packs
2. remove Update-Connector
3. install Microsoft .NET Framework II and Thinkvantage SystemUpdate
4. download and install the Lenovo - programs, tools and drivers without Access Connections
5. after reboot download and install Access Connections 4.52 manually - i don't trust AC 5.02, it seems to be buggy

since then i have no problems with wireless in WPA or WPA2 secured networks.


Please never install a new wireless driver version unless you have removed the old version with the setup.exe of the wireless driver/tool.

Have success.