Win7 ofice AD Domain machine on home WLAN

[chris1028]

I have two office Win7 Pro 32bit laptops (member of the office Win-Server2003 AD Domain) "Dell-A" and "Dell-B"

Home WLAN was recently changed from WEP (hidden SSID) to WPA-PSK/TKIP (broadcast SSID)
Both Win-7 machines have worked perfectly on the home WLAN using DHCP under the WEP setup for a year.
Vista machines, Logitech Squeezbox etc connect to home WLAN (WEP and now WPA) with no issues.

Dell-A was the first to be connected to the new home WLAN WPA setup.
Everything worked fine for around 40 hours then internet connection stopped yesterday afternoon (nobody in the house so it wasn't a user action). After I got nowhere thrashing around with reboots, I tried to connect Dell-B: not even the 40 hours grace period - no connection.

Here are the symptoms now shown by both machines:

Manually configure IPv4 to something in the WLAN subnet...
Network center shows the WLAN as home network (clickable blue) with an internet connection.
I get decent pings to anything on the WLAN and to the external world e.g. ping 74.125.43.105 (but not ping Google since I have no DNS). Web browsers happily connect to a typed IP (but not URLs since I have no DNS).

Switching IPv4 to DHCP...
Network center shows the WLAN as unidentified network (un-clickable black) without internet connection
IPv4 switches to the dreaded 169.254.156.189
No pings, no browsing, no nothing.

Switch back to manual IPv4 ...it works again
(i.e. SSID/PSK/Channel etc are all correct)


Throughout all this, I continue to listen to jazz radio from the internet on the Squeezebox whilst typing this into the forum on my Vista machine --- the WLAN is working fine!

I suspect something to do with these two machines belonging to the office Domain.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[chris1028]

additional info (a workaround)

IPv4 Config:

"General" tab = DHCP

"Alternative Config" =
IP = something in the subnet but outside of the DHCP range
NetMask = 255.255.255.0
Gate = the firewall IP in the subnet

DNS1 = IP1 from my ISP
DNS2 = IP2 from my ISP

...then everything works just like it should.

But I would still prefer simple DHCP to work without the "Alt Config" maintenance hassle (auto-getting DNS from ISP rather than the manual entries which may change).

Ideas?

Chris

 

[chev65]

First you should reset the router using the little internal push button on the side of the router. If you havn't updated the firmware on your router you should do so.

In the routers settings create your SSID and go with DHCP, use WPA2 with AES encryption "not mixed" and also designate the connection type 802.11 G or N "not mixed" use which ever one your network adaptor uses preferibly N.

When you set up the wireless connection on the machine itself use the manual wireless set up and use the same settings as you used on the router, don't use the mixed settings.

It's also wise to designate a wireless channel in the routers settings rather than letting the router find one for you.
The Xirrus wifi inspector is good for finding unused channels in your area.
Xirrus: The Leader in High Performance Wi-Fi - Advanced IT Wi-Fi Networking Tools

 

[chris1028]

Thanks chev65,

It is not possible to follow your recommendations!

WLAN is using ADSL >> Firewall >> Switch >> Access Point >> Range Expander to overcome some serious reinforced concrete between where the WLAN users sit and where the ADSL line enters.

The WRE54G range expander I'm using is a strange beast:
- in principle RE divides the 802.11G 54Mb/sec by around two and in reality by around 4 ...but 10Mb/sec is faster than my internet connection.
- RE gives some erratic ping times: not unusual to see a ping batch to the firewall like 9, 2, 1, 60 msec. I can live with it.
- RE is old (ie 3 years old!!!) and with latest available firmware (as of 2 days ago but dating back to end-2007) for that model can only handle WPA (not-2) ...perversely and undocumented, the RE will not work with WPA-mixed, only with WPA-G

RE is currently set to 802.11G but stuck at WPA-PSK/TKIP (it's a couple of days since I played with the WLAN config so I don't remember if AES is an option, but WPA2 is **definitely not**)

Do you reckon WPA2 + AES is the magic cure? (especially given that Dell-A and Dell-B can now connect easily with the "Alt Config" fixed-IP + fixed DNS setup).

Do you have any links to show WPA-TKIP won't work with Win7?

Tomorrow night I will be on another "home" WLAN that uses WPA2-PSK/AES (has always been mixed, but I can easily reconfig to G if it fails) - it will be interesting to see if Dell-A and Dell-B can connect happily to that WLAN (they have done so in the past 12 months up to 10 days ago when I was last there).

Thanks for your "food for thought". Chris

 

[chev65]

I can tell you that WPA should be fine and AES encryption "not mixed" consistantly works better with Windows 7. You would also need to designate those settings in Windows 7 using the manual wireless setup.

Your connection speed will be limited using wireless G. If you really want to see some improvments then going to wireless N is much better but you would need to update both your router the AP and your wireless adaptors to wireless N capible.

 

[chris1028]

I neglected to respond to a couple of your suggestions:

RESET NO
I will not reset FW, AP, RE: they are delivering WLAN to two Vista boxes and the Squeezebox via DHCP **AND** to the two Win7 boxes when using fixed IP "Alt Config".

DHCP YES
But not on the router or AP. The hardware FW is responsble for DHCP in the house (...and delivers IP/DNS to Vista boxes, Squeezebox, and a couple of wired clients)

CHANNEL YES
I'm squatting Channel 11 and the only other two WLANs in range are both on 7 (their problem not mine - maybe I'm halfway between them and they can't see each other).

Chris

 

[chris1028]

...typing at the same time.

OK - subject to the results of my weekend experiment with the other "home" WLAN, I will see if the antique WRE54G will handle AES and try that.

G speed is not an issue for me - WLAN is **ONLY** for internet access, nothing is shared.

...yet...

...I'm tempted to add the iTunes CD collection on one of the wired PC's to the Squeezebox but it is not a priority so far, and if it doesn't work I've always got the CDs.

Thanks for your suggestions & info. Chris

 

[chev65]

Do you have iTunes installed on either of the Windows 7 machines?

 

[chris1028]

no sir.

iTunes is on a wired Vista power-tower in the basement.

(Did you ever try loading 500+ CDs into iTunes - it's not something you volunteer to do three times, so this time - the second attempt - it is on a big box with RAID 1 disks and an external backup. We lost the first attempt when my son's need-for-speed RAID-0 threw a few sectors in the bin).

Chris

 

[chev65]

I'm not sure if the Domain connection is causing the problem or not but usually to get Windows 7 machines to work with server 03 you need to relax the lanman server settings on the Windows 7 machines.

Normally this only causes sharing problems with the server so I'm not sure if this has anything to do with your WLAN problem or not but it's worth a try.

Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Local Security Policy

Local Policies - Security Options

Network security: LAN Manager authentication level
Set to Send LM & NTLM responses only

Set the Minimum session security for NTLM SSP
Disable Require 128-bit encryption

 

[chris1028]

chev,

I really do suspect that the Domain membership of these two Win7 beasts is at least a partial cause in this affair.

Oddities include:
1. Both Win7 machines worked on the WEP WLAN for a year.
2. Dell-A worked on WPA-PSK/TKIP for 40 hours, Dell-B refused to connect from the beginning.
3. Dell-A, Dell-B both happily connect to WPA-PSK/TKIP with "Alt Config" fixed-IP/fixed-DNS

Unknowns include:
4. Will the Win7 machines connect to a WPA-PSK/AES that they have happily connected to for the past year (ie is this some paranoid new Win7 update getting in the way -info here is that Dell-A did get an update +/- 24 hours before it crapped out - no idea if Dell-A rebooted to complete the update after the download, BUT Dell-B did not connect to anything for 8 days so **certainly** did NOT get updated in that period ...and it has similar symptoms).

I'm not in front of the server until next week & will play with your findings then

Thanks for your efforts - I will report back.

Chris

 

[chris1028]

Hmmm,

Turns out that my memory is crap: the other "home" WLAN was also WPA-PSK/TKIP.
The Win7 boxes connected without issue using the "alternative config" (gateway is the same 192.168.1.1, fixed IPs are outside DHCP range, and although it's a different ISP in the other "home", I can still use the same hard-coded DNS from the alt config)

This is all very fine when moving from one of my "home" WLANs to another (I control the WLAN setup), but it is obviously total rubbish for roaming in general (airports etc), so I need to get to grips with this sooner or later.

re: chev65 suggesting possible Win7 >> Server2003 connection issues - I don't have this problem: the Win7 machines connect (wired) to the office domain without a hiccup.

Chris

 

[mckillwashere]

Chris....
I am assuming you are getting the error when you connect that says something along the line of "unauthenticated network"

 

[chris1028]

Maybe...

There are zero error messages beyond what you would expect from a machine without a network connection.
Win7 diagnostics chases its own tail for a while but doesn't come up with anything interesting or useful.
I don't have the Win7 boxes here today to try any tests.

Maybe not...

The Win7 boxes will not connect to my WLAN using DHCP. Connection icon is a park-bench with no option to change.

Using a manual IPv4 config instead of DHCP (or with DHCP and an "Alternative Config" on the second tab) works. I get the possibility to switch the park-bench to a ?? house (I think it is a house) and it all works.

The network shouldn't go from untrusted to trusted when going from DHCP to FixedIP ...or should it?



What I think I know so far:

My DHCP server is working: it feeds several other WLAN devices including Vista machines and the Squeezebox.

WLAN and Win7-WLAN-settings are fine (SSID, PSK, signal, channel): Win7 connects with manual IPv4 config.

Win7 hardware failure is not the cause: same symptoms on two identical Win7 machines.

Win7 updates are not the cause: one machine lost it's ability to connect after 40 hours of successful connection; the other machine had been OFF for several days - absolutely no connection to anything so no updates.

Human intervention is not the cause: the first Win7 machine was happily connected before I went to lunch and dead whan I got back - the house was empty when the Win7 machine lost it's ability to connect.

Both Win7 boxes continue to connect (wired) to the office AD domain.

Chris