ashburnskinsfan Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 A neighbor has a strange problem which I'm struggling to help him with. One of his PCs keeps switching to another neighbor's wireless router. Another PC in his house does not do this so it doesn't appear to be a problem with his router. Both are running XP SP2 and using Linksys wireless adaptors. The troublesome PC is happy to connect to his own router (which is listed first in his preferred list) and maintains that connection for tens of minutes. Then it switches to the other network. Neither of the routers are using encryption. Any ideas why the PC might be switching between routers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboDaMan Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 I had a similar situation. Got a Linksys wireless router with linksys adaptors on two PCs, both running XP (one SP1, the other SP2). One connection (SP1) worked like a charm, the other would only connect for a couple of minutes, then drop the connection. Sometimes it had rotated to another network, sometimes it just plain failed. I spent hours googling the problem, fiddling with settings, moving the adaptor, and talking to the linksys support people. Quite a few times I found people who had exactly the same problem, but none of their solutions worked for me. Finally in frustration I went to WalMart and bought the cheapest (because I didn't think it would help) non-Linksys adaptor I could find. Brought it home, it connected immediately and haven't had any issues since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashburnskinsfan Posted April 23, 2006 Author Share Posted April 23, 2006 I had a similar situation. Got a Linksys wireless router with linksys adaptors on two PCs, both running XP (one SP1, the other SP2). One connection (SP1) worked like a charm, the other would only connect for a couple of minutes, then drop the connection. Sometimes it had rotated to another network, sometimes it just plain failed. I spent hours googling the problem, fiddling with settings, moving the adaptor, and talking to the linksys support people. Quite a few times I found people who had exactly the same problem, but none of their solutions worked for me. Finally in frustration I went to WalMart and bought the cheapest (because I didn't think it would help) non-Linksys adaptor I could find. Brought it home, it connected immediately and haven't had any issues since. Thanks, but not what I wanted to hear I'd asked what had changed recently ... apparently nothing; this adaptor and router combo had been working for several years without doing this. Perhaps some recent Windows Update did something? The only difference between the two machines is the problem child is using a B rather than G adaptor, but the router is B also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboDaMan Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 Thanks, but not what I wanted to hear I'd asked what had changed recently ... apparently nothing; this adaptor and router combo had been working for several years without doing this. Perhaps some recent Windows Update did something? The only difference between the two machines is the problem child is using a B rather than G adaptor, but the the router is only B. I'd swap the adaptors and see what happens, but I don't think that's the issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rebornempowered Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 I am not sure I understand it properly but I think I may have a solution. Double click on the wireless icon in the system tray. Click on view wireless networks. To the left it click on change the order of wireless networks. Remove the network he doesn't want to be on from that list. That should do it I would think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baculus Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 Your neighbor should add his network as a preferred wireless network. This is performed in his wireless connection properties, under the Wireless tab, and in the Preferred Networks area (and to remove his neighbors wireless network if it is in this section). Also, he really should enable WEP, or better yet, WPA encryption on his network. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 The wireless "rules" say that your computer will connect to any network it can find, if it knows how. (And if there's no encryption, then it knows how.) Now, your "client" maintains a list of networks it's connected to, and the rpreferred order to connect to them. You can tell it to favor your network over the neighbors. But if, for some reason (interferance, bad signal, maybe even if it's just a case of being busy) it decides that the prefered network isn't available, then it'll use any unsecured network it detects. ----- That said, you really should use encryption, for several reasons. Without encryption, anybody who's near your house can use your internet connection. I'm not saying it's a common occurrance, but just imagine somebody parking a car in front of your house so he can download kiddie porn using your IP address. And, without encryption, anybody with the right software can monitor your internet trafic. (And any peer-to-peer stuf you do, too.) Your Extremeskins password, for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashburnskinsfan Posted April 25, 2006 Author Share Posted April 25, 2006 Curious solution. Disabling the NIC card in the problem PC seems to have made the wandering wireless connection problem go away. I've told him to use WEP, but we'll see ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DButz65 Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 TURN OFF SSID BROADCASTING in the routers setings Then you MIGHT have to manually configure the network you want to connect to, but your router wont be broadcasting .. "hey im a network, over here, connect to me" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slacky McSlackAss Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 TURN OFF SSID BROADCASTING in the routers setingsThen you MIGHT have to manually configure the network you want to connect to, but your router wont be broadcasting .. "hey im a network, over here, connect to me" Hey, its those ignorant people who dont know what a WEP is that allow me to get internet access for free at my apartment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oriolesfan93p Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 The other solution would be to find the owner of the other router that your friend is connecting to and see if they would be willing to let you set up security for them, or something like that. Windows won't try to connect to a connection with security unless otherwise told, and it won't be able to automaticly without the proper security key. That being said, I think I may know part of the problem you were having. Windows doesn't always seperate the network cards all that well. The wired nic being disconnected all the time could have been telling the other card to search for a connection even if that card already had one. Every nic in the computer wants to be connected, and if it isn't then it thinks something is wrong. . The other possibility would be that there is a stronger connection to the router that you don't want to connect to than the one that you want to connect to, without security being set up on either it could be that it thought that it was connecting to the same router, both routers being called linksys by default. The third possibility would have to be that the older linksys wireless card is just the problem. I don't care if it is old and worked for years, in my opinion the older the linksys card the better the chance that it is crap. Older Linksys wireless cards and routers had a lot of issues, and the reason that the G card isn't having the problems you are describing might just be that the way the card works is much improved. Basicly he should setup security and change the router name and that should be a permenant solution as windows will not search for another connection. For this it doesn't matter if its wep, wpa, or what, it just matters that security is setup. The scary part is that you spent time on the phone with linksys and they didn't tell you this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMalcolmConnection Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 Or just change the channels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMalcolmConnection Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 Right, also make sure you just don't have the default "linksys" name on the router. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rdskn4Lyf21 Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 just go to "preferred wireless networks" and remove the one it keeps connecting to...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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