Wireless networking problem (100% packet loss)

Oboro

So, I've been struggling with this for about a week and a half now. After exhausting all of the hotfixes I could find online, I tried both an OS reinstall and a switch of OS-- from Vista to XP-- and I am still experiencing 100% packet loss, making internet use impossibly tiresome.

I live in a hotel. I can move within feet of the room hosting the signal, with perfect network integrity, and I will still have 100% packet loss both pinging the modem and any remote location or website. I can load websites like the forums here because, over 30 seconds or so, enough data gets through-- but anything with a lot of uncached images will simply load indefinitely, and any sort of applications will fail. I can do small downloads with the help of a download manager, but that's it.

This is, frankly, intolerable. I can't do any sort of academic work because I can only load pages that are 90% cached already to begin with, and I can't do anything leisurely because my bandwith is effectively capped at 3kb/s in either direction.

I am fed up with this but the hotel assures me, as well as everyone else, that the problem is on our end.

I've adjusted every setting on my wireless card; I've gotten the newest drivers, tried old drivers; tried enabling and disabling various services and protocols; measured network efficiency from a dedicated boot; tried multiple OSes; tried the laptop on other networks, and have confirmed that it works everywhere else.

The hotel doesn't offer wired connections and my inability to work through this is killing me. Any ideas?

PirateJon

I'd guess a bad access point but...

I am fed up with this but the hotel assures me, as well as everyone else, that the problem is on our end.

What do you mean 'everyone else'? If multiple people have the same symptom, it's probably the access point.

Oboro

It's multiple people but not all people. It's possible that it's something dumb like someone who has a PC just running peer-to-peer programs 24/7 eating our bandwith, but it seems sort of contrived. If it really is just the access point, I'd have expected them to own up to it by now.

PirateJon

You could try checking for interference from other access points but really, if you've tested your system in other locations without issue and other people also have the same or similar issues - it's the access point or something upstream of it. Nothing you can do about it except be a squeeky wheel.