Wireless Connection Drops often with Intel 5300 AGN

[bruhaha22]

Hi,

I've researched the forum a little bit already about this issue, but haven't found a real solution yet. I have a brand new Lenovo X200 w/ an Intel 5300 AGN wireless card, and my connection drops and immediately reconnects very often. As I'm typing this, it has happened several times.

On recommendations from various forum posts, I have:
1) Installed the latest Intel driver (13.0.0.107) - supplied by Lenovo on recommendation from Intel's site.
2) Disabled IP6 in my wireless adapter
3) Played around with various power settings
4) Played around with various device driver advanced settings.

Nothing seems to make a difference. If anyone knows how to alleviate this issue, please let me know.

Thanks.

 

[chev65]

See if this post shows you how to fix it. There seems to be some drivers you may need and also changing to the 5.0Ghz band can help.

Re: ThinkPad Intel WiFi 5300 Wireless Connection D... - lenovo community

 

[RedBirdDad]

What brand and model wireless router do you have? That's something that should be investigated as well.

 

[madtownidiot]

I've had a similar problem with my computer. It ended up being nothing more than two wireless connections in range that were set to connect automatically.

 

[bruhaha22]

Thanks for the link, chev65, but unfortunately that didn't help. Before posting this thread, I also called Lenovo support and they had me get all my drivers and software up to date (which it already was). I tried the device driver advanced settings described in one of the posts in that link, but as I type it dropped me again (twice).

Going to the 5.0 GHz band is also not an option for me, since my router doesn't support it. It is a Netgear WGT624 802.11g(/b), which only operates on 2.4 GHz. There is also only one other wireless network within range of me, but it is very low signal.

Any other ideas out there?

 

[chev65]

That router should be compatible. Try to reset the router if you havn't already. Or try using another channel on the router. It might also be worth trying to use different security on the router like WEP.

There are similar complaints about that adaptor dropping connections all over the internet so it's a fairly common problem with no clear resolution.
http://communities.intel.com/message/76740;jsessionid=34213C86150EFFAF768B927DCDC01183.node5COMS

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/Details.aspx?type=Hardware&p=Netgear%20Super-G%20802.11g%20108Mbps%20Wireless%20Router&v=Netgear&uid=WGT624&pf=1&pi=2&s=Netgear%20WGT624&os=32-bit

 

[RedBirdDad]

If the router is up to snuff and compatible the next best thing it to look at channels.

It doesn't hurt to try other channels even if your laptop isn't seeing anything unusual. Other sources of interference could be microwave ovens and 2.4GHz cordless phones for example. The 2.4GHz band is pretty dirty and not all interference is caused by other WiFi devices.

 

[bruhaha22]

If the router is up to snuff and compatible the next best thing it to look at channels.

It doesn't hurt to try other channels even if your laptop isn't seeing anything unusual. Other sources of interference could be microwave ovens and 2.4GHz cordless phones for example. The 2.4GHz band is pretty dirty and not all interference is caused by other WiFi devices.

Thanks for pointing out the possible incompatibility of the router. I naturally assumed that any 802.11g router should be compatible with any 802.11g adapter, but it turns out this is not the case for some reason. Apparently, using Windows 7 means that some routers won't work, or need firmware updates, and mine is one of them. I'll try updating the firmware today and post the results.

Thanks.

 

[RedBirdDad]

Good Luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[neilberman]

Hi Bruhaha22,

We were seeing this issue consistently on a Dell Latitude E6400 with the Intel 5300 AGN card when trying to hold a connection over WiFi. We managed to diagnose it as a power management issue on the card and resolved the problem by disabling the power management features. We suspected that the 5300 was being a little over-aggressive in its desire to conserve power which may have been the cause of the frequent connection drops and re-connections.

Here is a walkthrough of the steps we followed, hopefully they will be helpful for both you and others in this thread:

Fix Dell Latitude Intel 5300 WiFi connection issues « theONbutton

Best regards,

Neil Berman

theONbutton