Why won't my wireless laptop find available networks

[octoolguy]

Hi all, hope you can help me. My friend has a Dell laptop running Windows XP sp2. The wireless adaptor is on and working. The little yellow ball bounces back and forth but after a while I get the message that there is little or no connectivity. It is sending but not receiving. When I try to check for available networks I get a message that it's not working. What am I doing wrong? I know I have run into this problem before but I can't remember what I did to fix it. Help! I want to look like a hero but right now I look like a dunce. In Device Manager there are no errors and the device is operating correctly. What setting am I missing?

Ray

 

[Fardringle]

"Little or no connectivity" means that there IS a network connection in use, but it does not have an IP address. On a wireless connection, that usually means that the wireless password is incorrect.

What EXACTLY does it say when "it's not working"? If it says that Windows cannot manage the connection because another utility is active, that means that the manufacturer's wireless utility is running and you need to use that utility to manage the wireless connection.

 

[octoolguy]

Thanks Fardrangle, not sure of what you mean but I disabled the other network connections so only the wireless is active. Supposedly it is try to acquire an IP address but after a bit it throws that message of little or no connectivity. The signal appears to be good as far as the 54 mbps is concerned. When I check properties there are a number of packets sent but zero rec'd.

Ray

 

[octoolguy]

Thanks for any help you might have been able to give me but I have figured it out on my own. The answer was there all the time. There is a separate utililty in control panel that controls the wireless adapter. I'm not sure how to turn off the windows utility though. I will figure it out.

Ray

 

[Matt1970]

3rd party wireless utilities are dumb since there is no way I know of to turn off the Windows one completely so you end up with 2 annoying taskbar items doing the same thing. They also tend to be a lot more complicated. In the 3rd party one you have should be an option to allow Windows to manage your wireless networks. Select that and the either uninstall the utility or take it out of startup. You can also just disable/uninstall the utility and the under services re-enable Wireless Zero Configuration.