HP issue on wireless network

[timmymacs]

Hi Guys,

I have a client that I have to go back to (again) today because they have an issue with their wireless network and one particular laptop. The Newtwork is set up with an ADSL modem connected to a Wireless router and the following clients all work fine: Wired PC, Wireless Mac Laptop, Wireless ACER laptop, 2 iPhone 4's. The problem comes with the HP Pavillion DV7? running windows vista. Sometimes the wireless network will drop out, and then not be able to be discovered again until after multiple router reboots. When it does eventually connect it shows close to full signal. I gave the HP its own fixed IP address in the DHCP of the router, and apparently that worked for about 3 days and now the problem has resurfaced.

I am going to try the following today and would love any other suggestions you have:

- Change the Wireless channel in case a cordless phone/speakers are interfering.
- Install the broadcast flag fix from microsoft support website


Thanks for your help,

Tim

 

[mjbasford]

Is the laptop using windows to manage the wireless or a third party app?

 

[timmymacs]

It was using a third party app as well as windows, and that was causing issues obviously, but I uninstalled that, and know it just runs the windows wireless.

 

[Paul Rodgers]

Does it have an nvidia GPU?

 

[dgiles79]

Does it have an nvidia GPU?

This is probably your issue, i've seen it too many times. The DV series has a lot of issues with GPU and the wireless connection being intermittent is a related issue.

 

[timmymacs]

Hey guys,

The GPU seems to be an ATI radeon HD4530, would this be causing the issue? How do I resolve?

Tried all the other things and nothing worked.

 

[shamrin]

I've got a Compaq (HP parts) doing pretty much the same thing right now. New driver seemed to almost help, but not. Uninstalled the A/V but that didn't help either. I've ordered a new wireless card (they're only $10) to see if that solves it. Should be here tomorrow or Friday, will try and remember to follow up here.

 

[Shark]

Just had a laptop with a similar problem. An Avast update was the cause.
The laptop was connecting for a while then would stop but after reboots and router resets it would come back. Just the wireless. The LAN would connect and work fine. Eventually nothing worked anymore and I was called to asses the problem.
Does this comp have Avast on it? If so, I had to N&P because of it.
There wasn't any information on what exactly it was in the Avast update that caused the coruption.

 

[timmymacs]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your suggestions. The HP Pavillion dv6 is running Norton Anti-virus. It is extremely strange because the customer says they have had the laptop for just over a year and only starting having problems a few months ago. The History was that they took the laptop away on holiday and used a 3G dongle (Telstra) to connect with the internet whilst away. When they came back it wouldnt connect to the home network again so they "'tried' uninstalling and reinstalling things" until it worked but came back with this problem.

I didnt mention this before because I have d/l and installed the latest driver updates, uninstalled the third party wireless software that was running, and designated a fixed IP address through the DHCP server. Today I even d/l and installed the latest windows updates (Vista SP2) which the customer had obviously been putting off for a long time, tried to run the flag fix off the microsoft website, and changed the channel of the wireless router... none of this worked.

Would love to know if replacing the wireless NIC makes a difference Shamrin. Or whether an update of some other kind has caused the coruption. Wondering whether a re-install will make any difference.

Sorry, Wireless Networking has never been my thing

Tim