WiFi spottiness [SOLVED]

Arrath

I have a wireless network set up in my house, works fine for my laptop and Xbox 360. My roommate just hauled in an older XP laptop (IBM Thinkpad T-42) that doesn't seem to work at all.

At first it would sit acquiring a network address forever, so I manually assigned it one. That seems to work, the only problem being that it only maintains the connection for 30-45 seconds. Then it drops and automatically reconnects. This laptop has not had problems on other wireless networks before.

I'm looking into any updates the laptop may need, but it seems fairly updated. The router is a WRT54G running DD-WRT, running in mixed broadcast mode.

Could it be a conflict between protocols since the laptop is so old? If so, would a USB wireless dongle suffice or might I be able to update drivers on the laptop? It works perfectly if I physically connect it to the router.

Fixed it: Doh. He'd typed in the bloody password incorrectly and rather than informing him of such the computer decided to automatically retry after being silently rejected. Works fabulously now.

Figgy

Try disabling the security on the router completely and then see if the Thinkpad keeps the connection. It could be a problem in that regard, which happened with my Macbook Pro. I had to hide my network and use mac filtering because I couldn't use any form of security of the macbook wouldn't keep the connection.

Also, there seems to be a lot of problems posted around the net if you google "WRT54G Thinkpad T-42"

If you've updated the firmware, your roommate might just be SOL. It might just be the thinkpad not liking the router, which isn't unheard of.

Buttcleft

Just FYI, Mac Filtering is in no way shape or form anything resembling security for your wireless network.

Arrath

Oh I know, I've run into that before. However MAC allowed filtering (rather than blocking specific addresses) and limiting the number of wireless clients to how many I have in the house seems to work reasonably well.

And thankfully I live in the country with the nearest neighbor a good quarter mile away, so security is really that essential.

Edit: Doh. He'd typed in the bloody password incorrectly and rather than informing him of such the computer decided to automatically retry after being silently rejected. Works fabulously now.