Wireless Network Connection disabled during heavy internet usage

Question

I really hope someone can give me some direction here... I've been having this problem with my Wireless network connection for months now!!

Oh... my full laptop specs are at the bottom of this post.

So, I generally boot up my machine and successfully connect to my home network (a wireless network running off a Netgear DG834PN ADSL router). Everything is fine for a while... that is until for no reason the wireless network drops out. The symptoms are as follows :

* In My Network Places --> properties, if I refresh the view, the Wireless Network Connection is disabled (attempts to "right click --> enable" result in "Connection Failed!" messages)
* My Intel PRO/Set Wirelss manager shows no networks found (there are usually a dozen or so visible)
* The Event Viewer System Log (My Computer --> Manage --> Event Viewer) shows the following error (EvId 5002):

"The description for Event ID ( 5002 ) in Source ( NETw4x32 ) cannot be found. "

* Entering Device Manager shows my Intel PRO/Wireless Card still visible, and I can view and edit the properties.
* Entering Device Manager and scanning for hardware changes causes my AEGIA PhysX adapter to disappear (!!?!?) This will also log a new event into the Event Viewer System log as follows (EvID 12):

"The device 'AGEIA PhysX 100 Series PCI Express Card' (PCI\VEN_1971&DEV_0000&SUBSYS_0003105B&REV_00\4&260036d2&0&00E4) disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal"

Sadly I can't reproduce the problem at will, however the problem does seem to arise whenever I'm performing heavy internet activity - I can sporadically reproduce it by going to bbc.co.uk/iplayer and watching any TV show on there, or when both downloading something and websurfing in multiple tabs simultaneously, or when Skyping to someone. The frustrating thing is that there's no guaranteed way of reproducing this...

Note that I do have another - much older - laptop (an Inspiron 8600), and that has no problems with the wireless network - even when it is sitting right next to my disconnected machine.

The ONLY way to regain my XPS's wireless connectivity is to reboot the machine (although if I start streaming video or even viewing lots of image-heavy websites again, it may drop out again!!!)

Things I have tried (based on about 2 months of Googling this problem!):

* Downloaded and installed the latest Dell AND Intel Wireless network drivers (currently am back to using Intel driver version 11.5.0.32 from Dell's driver page)
* Increasing Wireless card roaming aggressiveness and tweaked Power Management options on the device management page.
* Reset BIOS settings to default.
* Uninstalled and re-installed the Network Adapter.
* Uninstalled and re-installed the Wirelsss Network Connection.
* Re-installed Windows XP Pro.
*** Completely formatted hard-drive and re-installed Windows XP Pro ***

I just finished that last drastic step over Christmas. I then installed Firefox, and went to the iPlayer to watch a show - within 15 minutes my connection had become disabled, and I had to reboot to send this message!!!

Does anyone know what my next steps should be? (I'm trying this forum before sending all my screenshots, logs and data off to Dell!!!)

Many thanks!!

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

XPS M1730:

Smoke Grey Chassis
17.0" UltraSharp Widescreen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife with 2.0MP Web camera
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9300 @ 2.50GHz (800 MHz FSB, 6MB L2 cache)
4GB (2x 2GB) 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM
DUAL 512MB Nvidia 8800M GTX cards in SLi + 128MB Ageia PhysX
320GB (7200rpm) SATA RAID 0 Stripe (2x160GB)
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software
Integrated Sigmatel HD Audio (Software)
European - Dell TrueMobile 355 internal Bluetooth Module
Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card EUR(FOR CORE 2 EXTREME)
4-in-1 Flash Card Reader (SSD/MMC/MS Pro/xD)

230W AC Adapter / Primary 9-cell 85WHr Li-Ion Battery

English - Genuine Windows XP Pro SP2 - including Media

PudgyOne · Answer

sirkumi,

What type of settings are you using with your wireless router? I had problems with Intel ProSet Wireless. I am currently using Intel Proset Wireless Version 10.5.1.0 <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

I recommend these settings with your wireless router.

Update the firmware in your wireless router. Manufacturer's website, make & Model needed.

Broadcast SSID(You may want to change this to make it easier to connect)

Use WPA-PSK(TKIP) Security. Most wireless devices work best with this type of security.

Mixed b and g mode(n if available)

Use channels 1, 6 or 11. Most devices work better on these channels.

Save and exit. Power everything off for 30 seconds. Power everything back on, wait 30 seconds, now try to connect.

Rick

sirkumi · Answer

Wow - thanks for the prompt reply Rick!

Hmmmm... didn't think to check the router!

Well, to answer your question, my router (Netgear DG834PN Wireless ADSL Router) is set with the following options:

* Hide SSID (initially an extra bit of security for me, but then again I now know it's easy to sniff SSIDs if you really want to!)

* WPA-PSK (TKIP) Security.

* Mode is g & b

* Channel is 5 (what the?!??! I can't remember setting it to that... usually I use 11...)

OK - looks like I've got some updating and tweaking to do. I'll use the Proset Wirelss driver you've specified, and also upgrade my router's firmware (latest Netgear firmware version is listed as 1.03.39... my current is the factory default from 2 years ago). I'll also change the router settings as well.

Sadly, as I mentioned before, I can't reproduce the disabled Wireless Connection at will, however I can usually get reliable outages when doing lots of stuff at the same time! I'll get back here soon to let you know! (If it doesn't re-occur after 5 days I'm gonna call this a success!)

Thanks once again!

PudgyOne · Answer

sirkumi,

Hiding the SSID isn't really a great idea. The WPA-PSK(TKIP) Security should be enough, even though it's been hacked recently, if your password is long enough, it would still take at least 2 1/2 years to hack it. Mixed mode is great and try using channel 11(I do)

Keep us posted on the results.

Rick

sirkumi · Answer

*SIGH* .... it's funny how things work sometimes!!It's been about 2 weeks since I last posted, and after downgrading my Pro/Set Wireless driver and upgrading my router firmware as suggested, I wasn't getting any disconnects! I was literally hours away from coming back here and reporting that the router firmware upgrade was most likely the solution to this problem...(Strangely, I was, however, losing my dhcp assigned ip address which was causing tiny dropouts, but it would reassign an address quickly and everything would be fine again. I put this down to the old wireless driver, and was about to tentatively try upgrading it to see what happened...)Anyway, unfortunately it happened again last night!! My wireless connection dropped out and became disabled; I could not re-enable it; I could view the network card properties (although viewing them through device manager was slow), and also my AEGIA PhysX card again disappeared from the device list... the only way to re-establish my wireless connection was to reboot the machine.Rather ironically, the dropout occured as I was downloading the latest Intel Pro/Set Wirelss drivers - version 12.2.0.0, released a few days ago... (I was 50 seconds away from completing the download!). I wasn't doing anything else. Earlier that day I'd had 2 conversations on Skype, played an online game, and sent a few emails with no major issues (aside from the aforementioned brief losses of ip address).I think I'm going to upgrade my wireless driver anyway tonight. I'll also let this problem occur a few more times and then send all of this info and some screenshots in to Dell Support... I may just have a dodgy wireless card/chip (not sure which it is). There's definitely no issues with the router, since I can connect to it with other devices from the same room as this laptop.Thanks for your help though, Rick... very much appreciated!! Sorry we couldn't sort this one out  :-(- Kumi     Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ========================================================================== XPS M1730:   Smoke Grey Chassis 17.0' UltraSharp Widescreen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife with 2.0MP Web camera Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9300 @ 2.50GHz (800 MHz FSB, 6MB L2 cache) 4GB (2x 2GB) 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM DUAL 512MB Nvidia 8800M GTX cards in SLi + 128MB Ageia PhysX 320GB (7200rpm) SATA RAID 0 Stripe (2x160GB) Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software Integrated Sigmatel HD Audio (Software) European - Dell TrueMobile 355 internal Bluetooth Module Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card EUR(FOR CORE 2 EXTREME) 4-in-1 Flash Card Reader (SSD/MMC/MS Pro/xD)   230W AC Adapter / Primary 9-cell 85WHr Li-Ion Battery   English - Genuine Windows XP Pro SP2 - including Media

PudgyOne · Answer

Kumi,

If you're using any type of peer to peer programs, like Limewire, BearShare, etc..., they WILL make problem for your wireless connection. If that is the case, you will have problems until you stop using these programs. You still may have to read this and reset it from time to time.

How to repair a connection

Rick

altblue · Answer

Hi I am having the exact same problem as you sirkumi and was wondering if you ever fixed it and how you did so? I would really appreciate any help you could give me as this is driving me insane!

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Wireless Network Connection disabled during heavy internet usage

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