Windows 7: Wireless connection problem

Ok, so this is my first post/thread but I've been doing a bit of research but couldn't find a definitive answer on my problem.

I have a desktop PC running Windows 7 RC (64bit) with a Netgear USB adapter, and a Dell laptop with an Intel wireless adapter running Windows 7 RC (32bit) and I'm experiencing the same problem with both systems.

The problem I'm having is that sometimes when I try to connect to my wireless router (Netgear), it states that it cannot connect to my network and it gives me the dreaded orange asterisk.

I have removed and re-installed the wireless driver on both systems numerous times but that doesn't seem to fix the problem. The only way I can connect to the router is by power cycling the router, and then they can both connect without a problem.



When you ask Windows to diagnose the connection problem, it reboots the wireless adapter but it still won't connect. Then it recommends to restart the router and that's what fixes the problem. So at first I thought that maybe I need to buy a new router even though I NEVER had any problems connecting with XP before.

I then remembered that my brothers laptop is still running XP on it, so I have tested the connection problem with his laptop every time I can't connect with either of my machines, and his XP laptop connects to the router without a problem.

I have determined that this is a problem with the OS or the drivers, but l have already tried un-installing and re-installing the drivers and that doesn't help.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I can do to fix the problem? The biggest annoyance with this is that the router is in my brothers room, and since I work until 10pm every day, sometimes when I get home I'm not able to connect and he's already sleeping so I can't go in there to reboot the router.

Someone please help!!!!

Thanks

what model of Netgear router is it? Maybe you can try putting dd-wrt firmware on it to solve this problem.

also, just for the heck of it. Try to disable IPv6 on your network adapters.

Thanks for the response. I've gone ahead and disabled IPv6 on both of my systems and so far so good. If it continues to do it I will post again.

Ok, so after a couple of days of not having this problem I thought the issue had been fixed by simply disabling IPv6 in Windows 7.

Today I booted up my laptop and what do you know... the dreaded orange asterisk popped up again. This time I took a screenshot of what Windows has determined the problem is, and of course it's telling me it's my router although my desktop running Windows 7 is able to connect just fine as well as the other laptop that is running XP.

The wireless driver on my laptop is:

Broadcom 802.11g Network Adapter
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Date: 10/1/2008
Driver Version: 4.176.75.23

I have already tried updating the driver but it's got the latest (according to Microsoft).

The wireless router I'm using is a:

Netgear 54mbps Wireless Router WGR614 v6

I have already installed the latest firmware from the Netgear website on it (V2.0.19_1.0.19), and since the laptop running XP hasn't had any problems connecting I know it's not the router.

Does anyone else have any other suggestions as to what I can do to fix my problem?

Hi,

A suggestion.

Set fixed IP addresses on your computers.

Chose IP's outside the DCHP range, usually DCHP range is 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.50, but make sure by checking your router.

See if that solves your problem.

By the way, fixed IP's are preferable in a home network situation, because it is easier to do forwarding, and RDP.

Good luck

I'll give that a try, thanks.

Well I setup static IP's on both my laptop running Windows 7 and my desktop running Windows 7.

The thing about my router though is that it won't let me assign static IP addresses outside of the DHCP address pool for some reason.

Anyway, after reserving the static IP's in the router I went ahead and assigned each one of them to my laptop and my desktop. I was able to connect just fine, the router shows them both as being connected, but I'm not able to get out to the internet now. From both machines I can ping the router, they can ping each other, and they can even ping the other 2 machines on the network but I just can't ping out to the internet.

I went ahead and removed the reserved addresses and set them both back up to grab dynamic IP's for the moment. This whole Windows 7 wireless issue is really starting to get on my nerves. If Microsoft doesn't get this sorted out by the time the trial on the RC version comes to an end, I'm afraid I will have to go back to using XP where at least I know everything works the way it's supposed to.

Anyone else have any other ideas?

When you set static IP's, you also have to set the gateway in that box to the router's address (like 192.168.1.1) , and the first dns also to that same address.

I your DCHP set to the full range by any chance? 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.255 ?
Can you change DCHP range in the router? I yes set it to .50

good luck
leave second dns open.

PM me your MSN, it's easier helping you when we can communicate directly.

Greetz

I'm so dumb! Thanks for clearing things up man...

I was doing an address allocation on the router which is why it wasn't allowing me to input an address outside of the dhcp range.

I went ahead and assigned both of my machines static IP's now and they're working. Hopefully I won't get the dumb orange asterisk anymore. I'll post again if it does...