Vista wireless issue

Have you done a connection diagnostic on your pc 's wirelesss card when you can't connect?  If its like what happens to my setup, your connection diagnostic may show a gateway ip error.  This occurs when my router doesn't provide an ip address for laptop, which means I can't connect to the web.  It only shows local access.  A router reboot fixes it for me. 

As for the slow speed, that I wouldn't know.  You're not running some sort of firewall other than the windows firewall, are you?

Whenever I diagnose the issue, Windows just tells me it's unable to determine the source of the problem, and to contact my network admin.

 

It appears that the computer doesn't have any problem connecting to the router itself (signal strength is excellent, connection is sound, etc), but that Windows thinks the router isn't connecting to the internet (hence my local-only access).  I have to believe this is in error though, since I don't have any problem connecting via the same router with a laptop running XP.

 

To the slow speed issue, I think it's just an aspect of the bad router->internet connection Windows thinks is occuring.  Any ideas?

You can try this...

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

 

When you can't connect, don't run the Vista repair. Go into Control Panel, then network and internet, then scroll down to your wireless card, then run the connection diagnostic.  When you only have local access, you don't have a connection to your router.  Thats why you can't get online. 

Wow, I followed the directions on the Microsoft support link that you provided, and they made an immediate improvement on my computer's wireless speed.  Links that wouldn't load or loaded extremely slowly loaded immediately.

 

Unfortunately, I've uncovered another problem.  It appears that after some time, my connection to the router degrades so that I'm back to the slow performance I was seeing earlier.  When I attempt to disconnect and reconnect, Windows Network Diagnostics tells me that that the network is marked as a "hidden" network and is not in range or the wireless settings saved on the computer don't match the network.

 

Any ideas?

I had this EXACT SAME ISSUE. I even went so far as to install XP. While in XP, I had dell send a new card because my network wouldn't show up occasionally, and when it did, it wouldn't connect most of the time, and when it finally did connect, browsing hardly worked. After replacing the wireless card, and installing drivers from the ASUS website (not the dell website), I finally had things up and running. I had tried like 4 sets of drivers under vista, i tried 3 different routers (1 older dlink, 1 new dlink, and a linksys), and still had a hard time getting it working. With the new card, XP, and the asus driver, it finally works properly (although I haven't tried disconnecting from my network, connecting to another, and then reconnecting to mine...just in case that brings the issue back :P). Looking up the precise card online, I've noticed many people with the same issue. I think the problem is a combination of a bad card and buggy drivers.

Is your SSID turned off?  Does this occur if you hooked the laptop direct to the router with a wired connection? 

in device manager, goto your wireless card, and in the "power management" tab, make sure the computer doesn't put the wireless card to sleep. Also, update your drivers from the Asus website as indicated in my previous post, and post back how it went. You have no idea the headaches I went through to try to get this thing working.

I've tried this, and it temporarily fixed my connectivity issues - almost immediately after I set the registry variable, my pc reconnected to the network at speeds similar to what I get when I plug in directly.

 

However, after leaving my pc unattended for some time, it looked as though the connection was lost even though Windows thinks it's still going strong.  When I woke my computer up and tried to reconnect, I got the same slow connection I did before updating my reg files.

 

I'm not sure if my pc lost the connection when it went to sleep, or if some other issue is the source of the problem.

I'm not sure how to check whether SSID is on or off - can you explain?

 

And no, this doesn't occur when I connect my pc (desktop, not laptop) to the router via ethernet cable.

SSID is just your network name that your router will spit out, and you connect to.

 

If I were you, I would give this a shot http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

 

This might be the reason mine works in XP, and not in Vista (I didn't try this registry mod when I had vista installed, however).

 

 

Also, crack open the case and find the model of your card and go here to get the latest driver. http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us Vista labelled my card as a broadcom, but XP labelled it as Asus (it's listed as Asus in the Dell driver section too). I think my card was a WL-138gE, but I can't remember off the top of my head, and i'm not at home to check.

Also, try to get Service Pack 1 installed if you don't have it installed already. And give this a shot as well to disable TCP auto tuning

 

1.  Click the Start button .
2.  In the Search box, type command prompt.
3.  In the list of results, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as

administrator.  If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the

password or provide confirmation.
4.  Type "netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled", and then press ENTER.
5.  Restart your computer.

 

(To re-enable autotuning, type the command netsh interface tcp set global

autotuninglevel=normal, and then press ENTER.)

I should have posted this earlier, but the combination of registry variable tweaking (detailed in the Microsoft help link posted earlier in the thread) and the ASUS driver update that's available from Dell (forum search for ASUS) completely fixed my problem.

 

I've literally been suffering with no or sub-par wireless connectivity since my pc was shipped in September 07.  I only wish I'd gotten this advice from the Dell tech support technicians that I spent so many hours on the phone with.  From now on, I'm going to the forum with any questions i have.  Thanks!

I am having this same problem with my Inspiron 1501 running Vista Home Basic which has been running on a home network for a year suddenly not logging in.  I am getting a message that the settings saved on the computer are not the same as the settings for the network or the network is a hidden network.  I've checked all the helps on the Microsoft site to no good.  So you're saying the drivers for the NIC card need to be updated?