Suddenly WZC misbehaves: Network grays out right after "Obtaining IP Address"

[CZroe]

My sister's notebook suddenly started doing this a few weeks ago while she was in the hospital and I was only using it occasionally to check/pay her bills. I'd find myself complletely unable to do so.

This is what would happen:
After rebooting, it would show the SSID in WZC then automatically attempt to connect
It gets to the "Obtaining IP Address" part of the connection process then just abruptly STOPS
Instead of saying "Connected," it goes back to showing "Automatic" except that it is grayed-out.
Like in similar cases in the past, attempting to connect again prompts you for the security key and subsequently never connects when provided
After disabling the antenna, refreshing the list of networks, and re-enabling the antenna, it does not attempt to reconnect.
Restarting services has no effect.

At first, it appears to be a problem with the router, but
A) It worked fine this way for years
B) All other clients continue working normally
C) I've rebooted and reset everything with no resolution
D) The only things that have changed should not affect it

Around the time it started doing this, I was putting heavy load on the router (Bittorrent), installing a uPNP "network" TV tuner (HAVA Platinum), and setting up a Wireless Bridge using a WRT54Gw/Tomato, but all of these have been stopped, dismantled, & removed, never directly affecting the afflicted laptop in question... the HAVA software MCE TV Tuner driver was installed on a different PC and subsequently uninstalled, the wireless bridge was turned off and dismantled, the cable modem and wireless router were rebooted, reset, etc.

To make things stranger, I can fight with the laptop all day disabling and enabling adapters, "repairing" network connections, enabling/disabling hardware components, en-/dis-ing relevant services and software firewalls, etc to no avail and then, right before my eyes, it will just connect all on its own! I will be doing something completely unrelated like, say, typing a document, and suddenly the grayed out "Automatic" line in the WZC list of wireless networks will switch to "Obtaining IP Address" and it will connect and work!

This tells me that there is nothing wrong with the hardware's ability to connect, considering that this unprompted connection never fails. When it does connect,it stays connected as long as we don't reboot the computer (she's used it for over a week without issue, sleeping, waking, etc). Even so, the eventual need to restart puts us right back where we were with several days of frustration getting reconnected.

My sister does not realize how disruptive to her school work reinstalling Windows will be, especially with no Office installation discs and such (no clue where she got it originally), so I need to find the specific issue and get this fixed or, if there's some way to just reinstall the underlying networking components of Windows XP rather than the whole OS, I'd rather try that. Thanks a ton.

Note: I do not have a USB adapter to test with.

 

[USAFdude02]

Sounds like it might be dropping connection in the authentication phase. Also, you might try to upgrade the firmware on the router (never hurts) and for the card inside the laptop. When I got my I9300 I had that problem. I don't know why it would just pop up at random.

As far as re-installing windows...that should be a last option...that is a lot of time to waste for what should be a driver/software problem.

Also, what program is controlling the wireless network adapter? Is it the Windows one or like a Intel application? I know I had a problem with the Intel program dropping the connection all the time...when I let Windows control it everything was fine.

 

[spidey07]

Agreed - it's a common problem for the wireless utility and windows zero config to "fight" over each other. Pick one and only one and make sure the other one is compltely disabled (you have to stop and change windows services to get rid of zero config completely).

I absolutely hate zero config, complete and utter waste and crap.

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: USAFdude02
Sounds like it might be dropping connection in the authentication phase.

I dunno because that wouldn't explain why it will not attempt again when disabling/enabling.

Originally posted by: USAFdude02
Also, you might try to upgrade the firmware on the router (never hurts) and for the card inside the laptop. When I got my I9300 I had that problem. I don't know why it would just pop up at random.

Well, I doubt it's a firmware compatibility issue or else it would not have worked without issue for years. This problem happened suddenly and is not intermittent. But, well, like you said, it rarely hurts to try.

Originally posted by: USAFdude02
As far as re-installing windows...that should be a last option...that is a lot of time to waste for what should be a driver/software problem.

Yeah. It's just too bad that Windows isn't modular enough to fix broken "parts" of the software.

Also, what program is controlling the wireless network adapter? Is it the Windows one or like a Intel application? I know I had a problem with the Intel program dropping the connection all the time...when I let Windows control it everything was fine.

Just MS' XP SP1+ Wireless Zero Config (WZC). It was one of the first Vista laptops which I got for her and, out of frustration, she demanded that I put XP on it way back then. It was tough finding drivers at all, much less ones with a wireless utility, so it's used WZC exclusively from the beginning.

Originally posted by: spidey07
Agreed - it's a common problem for the wireless utility and windows zero config to "fight" over each other. Pick one and only one and make sure the other one is compltely disabled (you have to stop and change windows services to get rid of zero config completely).

I absolutely hate zero config, complete and utter waste and crap.

While I appreciate consistency (being able to tell a user where to go and how to do something), the utility is infuriatingly bad. Like, for instance, everyone has experienced the "grayed out 'Automatic'" issue that inexplicably will not try again and will not say what the problem is. If it is aware that there is a problem, standard program guidelines dictate that you don't just gray it out without any other user notification. Hell, their non-wireless-specific networking software fails hard too... like on my laptop, the Wireless hardware "disappears" from the Device Manager often (known problem), but when you "Repair" the connection, the dialog says "Connection Failed!" and disappears before you can read it. Why print an error message to the screen without ensuring that the user sees and acknowledges or dismisses it?

Anyway, I think we are barking up the wrong tree. It's something underlying that is causing WZC to behave this way, be it broken Windows networking software or failed hardware. Unfortunately, I have no other adapters to try. The only way I have to diagnose the hardware is a fresh Windows installation, so I'm hoping for a software diagnosis and solution first. The fact that it worked fine for years leads me to think that the router, firmware, drivers, etc are all fine unless something has been corrupted, but I will redo all that before resorting to a Windows reinstallation.

 

[spidey07]

With all the mucking around you've been doing your stack and overall network bindings/linkages might just be out of whack. Reinstalling whatever service pack you have generally will clear that up, there is never a need for a re-install for something like this. I'm not being insulting, windows just likes to break things network related the more you change things, that's normal.

But you're symptoms are classic of having zero config and some kind of wireless utility installed. Also take security out of the equation and try with no encryption to ensure you don't have a security mismatch (also very common).

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: spidey07
With all the mucking around you've been doing your stack and overall network bindings/linkages might just be out of whack. Reinstalling whatever service pack you have generally will clear that up, there is never a need for a re-install for something like this. I'm not being insulting, windows just likes to break things network related the more you change things, that's normal.

But you're symptoms are classic of having zero config and some kind of wireless utility installed. Also take security out of the equation and try with no encryption to ensure you don't have a security mismatch (also very common).

Mucking with the network stack? I hadn't been doing anything with this PC and router before this started and they are the two oldest nodes of this time-proven network where all other clients continue to work fine (this netbook, the Playstation 3, my iPhone, etc). There is nothing new to conflict and the settings have not change to conflict. I haven't changed anything since then that I haven't changed right back (disable service, enable service; disable hardware, enable hardware; disable wireless antenna, refresh network list, enable wireless antenna, refresh network list; etc).

IIRC, the service pack was slipstreamed when it had XP installed... either that or the uninstall files were deleted and the Add/Remove Software entry removed due to a successful, trouble-free installation on a clean system. Thanks though. I will see if I can reinstall SP3 regardless.

The HAVA box was unplugged immediately due to severe video interference and the bridged router was unplugged and packed up as soon as I got that PC a PCIx wireless network adapter. If they had anything to do with it it would have to be a little more than simply confusing it, considering how many times it has all been reset since then. If it were a settings corruption or incorrect security parameters, then it should affect all the devices, though it could be a corruption limited to the DNS tables and MAC records it has for that particular device.

I think I should just man up and overhaul the network with the other router (time to go from Tomato to DD-WRT), but I was going to return the PCIx adapter and continue using it as a bridge.

FWIW, only our router is grayed out. All the others networks in the apartment complex (A LOT!) are visible and would probably work if we had the settings. It does AD-HOC with my iPhone and pulls an IP from PDAnet in so-called "Access Point" mode.