Netgear WG311v2 and Win2k

I am having a horrible issue. It seems to be software related. I have a machine running Win2k with the latest SP. In it I have a Netgear WG311v2 wireless 54G card. Since Win2k doesn't support Wireless I had to use the software that came with the card. It worked great without any issues for probably about a year. Then out of the blue (after the PSU died and killed 2 sticks of ram dropping it from 1gig to 384mb) it started freaking out. It would lose connection to the network for a few days then it would find the network again and work fine. You can visit here for the thread I made about it: http://vnboards.ign.com/PC_General_H...97/91662329/?7

Last time I uninstalled the software and reinstalled it and it worked for another 6 months. Then all of a sudden this last month it started doing it again. Uninstalling and reinstalling the software didn't work. I got fed up and thought that perhaps the card had finally died so I bought another WG311v2 and put it it. Soon as I installed it, bammo, working again. 2 days later, it to started doing the same thing. So I put in the old card again and it worked again for 2 days or so. Then it stopped working. I then uninstalled the drivers only and reinstalled the drivers (not the wireless software) and it worked again for a few days. Then tonight it stopped working again. I just got done reinstalling the drivers, no go. I uninstalled the drivers and software, no go. I downgraded to the previous version of software and drivers, no go. I am at a loss at what to do here. The card sees the network just fine but it will not connect. It just sits there cycling through the channels. I am at wits end since replacing the card didn't work and every software issue that worked once no longer works. Of course my phone support for Netgear on Software is up (90 days, they suck, I am buying Buffalo Tech from now on). And I forgot my password to log in and use their email support and their email password is not working.

Anybody got any ideas? Perhaps a setting in Win2k? I am at a loss.

Oh and to continue my post at VNBoards I took my router down to my church where I run their wireless network (all buffalo tech thank goodness) and it worked just fine. So it isn't the router.

Did you try moving the slot it was in?

Yes when I swapped the cards with my old one and the new one.

So you didn't move the slot - you just changed out the card. Try it in a different slot and reset cmos while you are at it.

No, I did move slot when I swapped out my old one for the new one.

Right so now you need to try another slot.

You thinking it's a Shared IRQ thing?

Well I tried it in all the PCI slots and none worked.

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Originally Posted by eedmond

Well I tried it in all the PCI slots and none worked.

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could you elaborate? What exactly didn't work?

They all did the same thing. Refused to connect to the network. Windows detected the card just fine. Just like always but the same original problem remains that it cannot connect to the network.

What IP did windows assign these cards?

It may be the old version is still installed in device manager - look in hidden devices and system devices.

The IP assigned by the router so it has no IP because it can't connect to the router.

I just checked Hidden Devices and the driver itself was not listed twice but a secondary driver for it which goes by the same name buy has Odyssy something attached to was duplicated. Deleted them all and am rebooting now. It wouldn't let me delete one of them, it said that it was required to start windows. But it was the driver for my WG311v2. I am thinking it refused because I had just removed a similar one. So will try it again when I reboot. Takes forever to reboot.

you need to reboot to safe mode to do this right.

Ya, it wouldn't let me delete it. I had 3 of those Odyssey drivers, 2 of the WG311v2 and 1 for an older card I had. Am booting into safemode now.

Ok, tried to remove them in Safe mode. Got the same error message about it being required to boot up.

What are these Odyssey drivers? They are all made by FUNK SOFTWARE. Is it perhaps a virus?

Well, I finally got it all uninstalled and reinstalled. But it still won't connect to the network. It sees it fine but just won't connect. I am stumped.

so now it has an ip?

start, run, cmd
ipconfig /all

paste the result in here.

Nope. No Ip. IP is assigned by the router. Won't connect to the router. So it cannot get a IP.

As in seeing the network just like in XP it has a tab where it shows all networks it senses in the area and you double click on it to connect. It just won't connect.

can you paste the ipconfig /all report anyway?

I THINK I figured it out. I don't understand why it changed out of the blue (nothing changed when this first started happening). I went into my router and changed the Authentication Type from Automatic to Shared Key and it connected right away. We will see if this is just a temporary fix and only lasts a few days or not. I am guessing it will just work for a few days before it stops again.

If you had a power outtage and the router reset itself to defaults....?

Hope that is all it was.

No, It was always at Automatic (default). And my router is plugged into a UPS. This has happened before, where i would find a "fix" and it would work for a few days then it would stop working again. Then the next time I find a "Fix" it's different from the last one.

have you upgraded the firmware on your router?

Ok, like I thought it stopped working again today. But luckily this time I just had to go back into Authentication Type and switch it from Shared Key back to Auto and it connected again.

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have you upgraded the firmware on your router?

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Yes it is the latest firmware available.

Time to email netgear I think.... That behaviour is not right.

I have, no response as of yet. I used to love Netgear but this is getting me leaning toward Buffalo Tech instead. They have unlimited 24/7 phone support unlike Netgear's limited phone support.

Well, I have been talking to Netgear support through email slowly. I decided to try to upgrade the firmware again so incase it had gotten corrupted some how. Everything was going fine until the final step. It flashed it ok supposedly then just froze at 99% done. Now I have a paperweight. I went to Best Buy and bought a new WGR614v6. It seems to be working fine now. It was only $30 after rebates and I went ahead with another netgear because my wireless card is netgear and I have WEP enabled. Some cards handle WEP differently.

We will see if it keeps working after 2 days now.

*crosses fingers*

Well kinda drastic... but let's hope it was the box that was faulty and the new one isn't. Will netgear replace the old one?

Don't know. Doubt it is still under warrenty yet. Might be. The new WGR614v6 seems to be working. But it has only been one day so we will see tomorrow.

Bah!

Today, with the new router it stopped responding again. It has to be the Netgear software that is the issue. That is the only thing that has remained a constant. This time I was able to "fix" it by changing it from WEP encryption to WPA-PSA encryption.

That or your line is desynching....the modem is integral to the router... right?

I have a cable modem and it is a Motorola and is separate from my Netgear Wireless router. My physical connections to the router never have issues with INTERNET or anything.

What port do you have the cable modem connected on?

Just curious as why the spot that my Cable modem is plugged into affects wireless?

Anyway it is plugged into the Internet port (that's what they call it on the modem).

In the old days, hardware routers had ports that could not be reconfigured, you had to use the right port for the item you were plugging in... nowadays it is not as prevalent because the ports can reconfigure themselves based on the examined throughput... but not all routers do this, some have a WAN port which you must use. So the modem goes in the WAN port and the other devices go to the network ports.

Is the router on an ordinary power block or is it on a smoothing/surge protection block?

Ah. Well the input from the Internet is in the right port. Just an FYI, I have a HP Officejet 7210 (built in lan port and printer server) plugged in and this computer here which I am typing on. Neither have ever had issues with connecting to each other nor the internet during this whole thing. ONLY the wireless is affected.

After 2 days or so it did it again and I had to log into the router and remove all encryption of anykind. So far it is still going but tomorrow is the 2 day mark.

I don't understand why it is always 2 days. I thought maybe that was when the IP address expires and the DNS server is not reassigning a IP, but the IP is assigned daily (24 hours).

Just makes no sense. I have replaced both pieces of hardware. So it HAS to be a software issue. I am thinking of just reformatting her HD, it has been 3-4 years since I did that on her computer so it probably is due.

Good thing about Win2k, install and forget.

I think the only useful thing I can say at the moment is... wanna donut? :)

While I don't recommend leaving it this way, disable wep completely and se if you can connect. If so, you need to check the OS...something about Win2k and WEP don't like each other. We have a client with the same problem exactly...so we have been gradually migrating them to XP as they can afford it.

I did disable WEP. It is still going as of tonight, it made it past the 2 day mark. I tried WPA but it too had the same issues. Guess I will just go with a unsecured network :( .

Did you enable mac filtering?
This allows ONLY machines with the right mac address to connect. It is unlikely that someone with the skillz to spoof mac addresses would be interested in sitting outside your house to steal your bandwidth.

The other thing that occurred to me is that you may have a neighbour using a similar channel and that every couple of days the conditions are right for them to clash. If you are using the default channel, you may wish to try changing the channel on both the nics and the router.