Wireless network problem w/ Insprion 600M & TrueMobile card

Question

Here's the deal; very, very strange.

I have both an Inspiron (personal laptop) and a Latitude (co. laptop) and with my Linksys wireless router (about 2 years old) have an SSID that has the broadcast disabled, a WEP key requirement and is of course not the generic linksys SSID.

My Latitude can connect to it with no problems. I had my whole wireless network configured to a tea! No one (theoretically) could scan or sniff my signal; they could only connect to it if they knew the SSID AND the WEP key and (which one at that).

Anyhow, some guy -- so it seems -- has bought a router and doesn't have his SSID disabled; so one night after my hard drive on my desktop crashed, I noticed I was getting a connection for the Internet, but under the auspices of a new SSID (call it linksys1, for example).

The problem is, while the Latitude -- using Centrino technology -- can still connect to the SSID I configured (let's say nonlinksys, for example), the Inspiron with the TrueMobile 1400 (maybe 1300, don't recall) while configured to connect to the nonlinksys ID, it can only connect to the linksys1, which doesn't have SSID disabled. I can ONLY connect to the nonlinksys signal if I enable SSID, which I'd rather not do for obvious security reasons!

Is this because something within the TrueMobile wireless, as opposed to the Centrino? What could cause this? This is hugely annoying and disrupts my entire wireless network! I can't access files on my desktop nor vice versa, nor can I even see the computers on the same network workgroup!

Any ideas? I am wide open to suggestion!!:smileysurprised:

Message Edited by redraiduzz on 02-07-2005 04:23 PM

volcano11 · Answer

If you have not upgraded all computers to Windows XP SP2, you should do so, as the Windows wireless zero configuration is much improved in avoiding this problem with SP2. Also look at the following:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/Sections-article75-page6.php

Steve

dj_cool · Answer

Tried recreating the connection on the laptop with TrueMobile card? Updating the wireless card drivers may help too.

redraiduzz · Answer

thanks for the suggestions; I will try both; I'd purposely held off updating my laptop (the XP Pro w/ TrueMobile) with the XP SP2, but I guess I'll go ahead and bite the bullet on that. I was thinking it might hose my McAfee firewall, but my PC's worked ok.   Tried resetting the wireless connection on the laptop? You mean from the LAN Settings via the web for the router? Or do you mean blow away the connection on the laptop and recreate it? I believe I did both, but I can retry it.   And I have not updated the drivers yet for the TrueMobile card; I will do that; and the last few nights, the connection on the 2000 Pro laptop has started to fail, too. Not sure why.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Wireless network problem w/ Insprion 600M & TrueMobile card

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