[j0sefK]

jaaroo79, on Sep 6 2007, 07:23 PM, said:

Don't waste your time suffering previous miseries and waiting any longer and GO AHEAD -update it! You won't mess anything and you can always roll back.
Or have you not had enough of tricky connection yet?

Yes!!!!! Another happy customer here!!! Installed and running smoothly. Thank you everybody for sharing your experiences and finding out the fix.

[Martinp]

Hi there - I found this topic through Google and thought I would register to this rather nice looking community - you guys seem to know what you are on about.

I have a Sony Vaio SZ4MN/B running Windows Vista Business with an integrated Intel 3945 wireless controller. I am connecting to a Netgear WGR614 V7 running WPA-PSK security. My problem is not that the radio shuts off completely - it only deactivates for about 5 seconds every 30 minutes to an hour and I loose all my connections. It then takes toughly 10 seconds to re-connect to the wireless network. This is especially annoying while I am talking to people on IM or Skype. This is not a problem with the router - I am sure of this because I live in a house with 4 other people and they are all running XP and a variety of different network cards and they never get disconnected.

I have tried all the suggestions on this thread that I could find. I installed the Windows Vista original drivers, the latest official drivers from the Intel site (11.1.1.11) and I am currently running the modified dell drivers (11.1.1.22). None of these workarounds seems to have fixed my problems.

Originally I thought it was a problem with my install, so I re-installed my vista which due to the fact that I have an OEM copy meant that I had to phone the activation hotline.

My question is: Does anyone have any more suggestions? Thanks a lot - all replies are very much appreciated. If I can't fix this problem I think I will kick Vista off this PC and install XP. But I don't really want to do that, seeing that I do actually quite like Vista (once I disabled UAC - urgh). What I don't understand is that this issue still isn't officially fixed by either Intel or Microsoft ...

[c0lin]

Martinp, on Oct 15 2007, 01:01 AM, said:

What I don't understand is that this issue still isn't officially fixed by either Intel or Microsoft ...

Actually it has been officially addressed by Intels latest driver release:

Quote

* Addresses 3945ABG radio disable seen with some systems running with Bluetooth modules
* Addresses 3945ABG radio disable seen in some 802.11a environments after Standby or Hibernate

The issue you describe is completely different from what this thread is about. Replace your router.

[Martinp]

colin86, on Oct 19 2007, 06:45 PM, said:

The issue you describe is completely different from what this thread is about. Replace your router.

I'm sorry, but i stated that I am 100% sure that this isn't my router.

"This is not a problem with the router - I am sure of this because I live in a house with 4 other people and they are all running XP and a variety of different network cards and they never get disconnected."

In the meantime I have tested my laptop on a buffalo router and had the same disconnect problems.

This problem I am having is so similar to the problem described in this thread. In fact my wireless card also deactivated itself at times instead of just disconnecting from the network. Then I installed the new driver and it doesn't fully deactivate itself, but the disconnects are still there.

Also, this isn't an official Intel fix. The driver provided is from Dell.

[c0lin]

Martinp, on Oct 19 2007, 12:55 PM, said:

This problem I am having is so similar to the problem described in this thread.

Similar but not the same.

[Zyon]

Hi, people!

I've just registered to this forum because of this very problem. My computer is a Lenovo Thinkpad R60, which also uses the Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG NIC. First, I had the same problems with the radio shutting off after short use, just like many people have described in this thread. When not attempting to pull out my hair, I tried switching between various drivers, supplied by Lenovo, Intel and Dell, without any success. The result was even worse; Despite that the indication LED for wireless radio was lit, I could no longer even find any wireless networks to connect to, even though I knew there were several present. Pulled out some more or my hair.

Then I came across this blog, which describes how to turn off "Receive-Side Scaling State" and the "Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level" in Windows Vista's TCP stack. I thought it would be a long shot, but I had already tried everything else. Believe it or not, now Vista was finding and connecting to my network! So I tried switching back the settings in the TCP stack and used it for a while. The radio shut off, but a reboot solved this. I decided to once again turn off those features and used my machine for about 20 minutes. Then the radio shut off again. By this time, I was getting a bit frustrated, but I rebooted again and from that moment, my Thinkpad no longer seems to have any problems with the wireless connection. And even if it does, I'm far better off than I was when it wouldn't even find any networks.

So now my hair is slowly growing back again, and I think I've solved this problem on my machine. I hope this information is useful to at least some of you. I know how frustrating this problem is. Good luck, everyone who's still struggling!

[jaaroo79]

Martinp, on Oct 15 2007, 08:01 AM, said:

.... This is especially annoying while I am talking to people on IM or Skype. This is not a problem with the router - I am sure of this because I live in a house with 4 other people and they are all running XP and a variety of different network cards and they never get disconnected.
...

I think I mentioned it before: Skype is notorious about creating hell of a many connections, which resulted in radio shutdown and reconnect attempts. -I had similar syptoms you described too -it would eventually reconnect after "a while!"

My suggestion is: try NOT using Skype or other IMs for a while to see if it helps if you still experience your problems. Also, if you used to hybernate your PC instead of shutting down, try NOT to hybernate.
Good Luck

[Martinp]

Thanks for the feedback jaaroo79, but skype is basically essential for me. I stay in contact with many of my friends and family this way, so not using it is a non-option. I am seriously thinking about XP and seeing if the problem persists. If not, then there definitely is something wrong with the Vista architecture / the intel drivers.

[AddictedToPain]

Hi, I registered To this Forum because i Am having the same problem to the wireless card il state the situation.

I am currently using:
Dell 6400 inspiron Laptop
Intel 3945ABG wireless Card
And Vista ultimate

The problem Started months ago, but wasnt as Frequent as it is now, I Always leave my laptop and do 1 restart a week to refresh the system.

The Problem would be that i would leave my laptop on Over night, whilst only on the Program utorrent. after 3-5 days the wireless would turn itself off overnight.
i do not use Skype or any other program whilst leaving it on over night, just utorrent.

When it has been turned off I cannot use the FN+F2 button to turn back on my Wireless card, i have to restart For it to recognise it
this sounds like a bios/wireless hardware issue? however im not an expert.

This has become more frequent and now it is doing it everynight. iv tried to update the driver. but nothing.
i am only finding this problem now when i Close the lid and go to bed the wireles is on, And when i wake up the wireless is off.
it has never turned off on me during the day.

please help
thanks alot, rob

This post has been edited by AddictedToPain: 03 November 2007 - 11:48 AM

[starryskyn]

My four month old Acer Aspire laptop with Vista Home Premium was fine Friday night. I left it alone on weekend, and Monday AM the Intel 3945ABG wireless network adapter built in to this 5610-4610 is missing. Device Manager lists only the Broadcom wired network adapter, which I am using now.
I tried installing the wireless adapter with Add Hardware PnP, but none was found. I tried to install manually by telling maker and model of adapter, and then it appeared in Device Manager with an error /!\ symbol. Properties says the driver installation failed. Tried uninstall of adapter, power down, and reinstall. No change, so tried to update driver, and message was best driver is already there.
Went to Acer support webpage and downloaded latest driver 11.1.1.11 for Vista for that adapter in my model laptop. Upon unzipping and installing software to load driver, it failed. Message says that the Intel 2910ABG device was not found. That was a surprise. Emailed Acer support twice on this and got no reply yet. Everything else works fine, no software was changed or loaded between Friday and Monday, and I was home and there is no one else to touch computer. It was not moved from its spot, no power problems, no funny smells, etc.
Anyone seen this before? Suggestions welcome, thanks.
Gregg

[Zulan]

Hello!

I just wanted to say that the xp fix and the new intel 11.1.1.22 drivers didn't help my problem. Very frequent disconnects. It disconnects after about 2-10 minutes no matter what driver I use. I have another computer with an dell 2200 wifi card and it works perfectly so it's not my router. And it's not a special problem with just my 3945ABG since my old Latititude D620 wich burned up had the same problem.

I now have a Dell Latitude D630 with a brand new installation of Vista Ultimate. It works fine using xp.

I've had this problem for several months now and I can't even express my frustration.

[RyanN]

Instead of everyone complaining and waiting on someone to fix your problems, why not READ THE FORUM!!! There are several fixes in here, including one that shut most of us up (new Vista drivers that Dell released a while back) I recently tried the new drivers and found them to have a lot of errors and delay connections to websites, so I'm sticking with my current version which is dated 8/14/2007, and the driver version is 11.1.1.22.

Hopefully the administrators won't get mad, but here is the link to the page.

I may sound mean, but a whole page of you guys came here complaining that your wireless card wasn't working and none of you, except for one (Thank you Zulan...), read anything. As stated in other forums I'm in PLEASE SEARCH AND READ BEFORE YOU POST!

Zulan, I have no idea why your card is not working... I would try to uninstall all drivers for your wireless card and then try to install the 11.1.1.22 driver again. I think your laptop may be defaulting to a bad driver for some odd reason, and it could possibly be some of the custom settings of maybe a power setting that you have. The 11.1.1.22 driver fixed my problem as well as many other people's problems.

This post has been edited by RyanN: 27 November 2007 - 03:33 AM

[starryskyn]

RyanN, on Nov 27 2007, 03:29 AM, said:

Instead of everyone complaining and waiting on someone to fix your problems, why not READ THE FORUM!!! There are several fixes in here, including one that shut most of us up (new Vista drivers that Dell released a while back) I recently tried the new drivers and found them to have a lot of errors and delay connections to websites, so I'm sticking with my current version which is dated 8/14/2007, and the driver version is 11.1.1.22.
The 11.1.1.22 driver fixed my problem as well as many other people's problems.

I READ THE FORUM!!! , and I applied the fixes suggested, loaded drivers, uninstalled and reinstalled, no change. I destroyed my hard drive setup and put it back to factory default, no help.
The cure was a trip to the Best Buy's Geek Squad for warranty service. A young man removed and reseated the card. That cured it in five minutes. Now wireless connection is just fine. But the mystery is still there. Why did the card stop working over a weekend when the computer was not touched. The card is firmly screwed down in two places, so it is firmly in the socket. I guess it needed a vacation.

[osuwildlifer]

starryskyn, on Nov 26 2007, 11:15 PM, said:

I READ THE FORUM!!! , and I applied the fixes suggested, loaded drivers, uninstalled and reinstalled, no change. I destroyed my hard drive setup and put it back to factory default, no help.
The cure was a trip to the Best Buy's Geek Squad for warranty service. A young man removed and reseated the card. That cured it in five minutes. Now wireless connection is just fine. But the mystery is still there. Why did the card stop working over a weekend when the computer was not touched. The card is firmly screwed down in two places, so it is firmly in the socket. I guess it needed a vacation.

I'm glad to hear that your system is up and running again, even if you did have to spend money to get it that way. And i wish i knew what the exact reason behind it was, but removing and reseating internal components is a frequent troubleshooting step in the IT support positions i've worked. I don't know what causes things to get screwy in the first place, but simply removing and reseating RAM has fixed several of our systems that wouldn't boot. On other systems, reseating the graphics card has often fixed display problems. My theory is that reseating the hardware forces a re-detection and a functional reset of the device, allowing it to reestablish proper communication with both the BIOS and the OS, whichever one might have been causing the trouble. Hard to say what might have caused the card to stop working in your case - when strange things like that happen here at work, i often jokingly tell the customer that their PC was simply feeling neglected and needed a little bit of attention.

[Damnfool]

Has anyone else tried this method of removing and reseating the card? I am having the same problems as everyone else. Toshiba U305, Intel 3945ABG, Vista Basic.

Have tried all of the suggestions here. Can't download the Dell driver since I don't have a Dell. This problem with the 3945ABG and Vista has been around for almost two years. This is crazy!!! How can they not have fixed it in that time?

Please keep your posts coming - most boards have long since died out in regards to this topic as I'm sure the users have either killed themselves or smashed their laptops to pieces. I'm very close myself and I just picked this up in December.

Dropped signal, no signal, limited connectivity, sometimes won't recognize network, will sometimes connect but then drop later. NEVER connects when in the same room as router (Linksys WRT54GS). What? Have never, ever had a full signal strength connection - usually 60% or less.

PLEASE HELP

[j0emv]

Ok this reply is going to be lengthy but here goes. I found this forum while searching for the exact same problem i'm having with the Intel 4965AGN card. Here is my setup:

(75) Lenovo X61 Tablets
Core2Duo Processor
1GB RAM
Intel 4965AGN varying driver versions
WPA2 Enterprise using PEAP
HP Procurve Access Point 530s

For some reason, I wasnt having this problem as frequently when I built my own image but when I decided to give the Lenovo Windows XP image a try, we were seeing frequent disconnects, re-authentications, and dead connections after retrying so many times. I called up Lenovo, and they were completely useless but they did give me a few tips that eventually led to the final fix:

1) In device manager, find the wireless nic
2) Under the power management tab, uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power
3) Under the advanced tab, there's a power management option there as well. I found that machines that consistently held their connections and were stable, had this setting set to the lowest value, and then checked "use default value". I found the systems that were exhibiting the erratic behaviour had this setting manually set to one of the higher values. Once I lowered them, they worked great.

What's odd is that when I built my image, this setting defaulted to the lowest value. When I used the Lenovo XP image, the setting was manually configured to a higher value. I called them on it but all the tech could say was that it works, and thats all they can offer. Hopefully this helps someone else.

I tried drivers 11.1.1.11, 11.1.1.16, 11.5.0.32, etc, they all exhibited the same symptoms until I fixed these settings. You can imagine having 75 of these monsters out there is a nightmare.

Thanks!

[Damnfool]

Update: I downloaded driver 11.5.0.32 from Intel and updated the wireless card. I also downloaded the PROSet/Wireless Network Connection software (11/8/07) from the Intel website. Both are available under the downloads for the 3945ABG

I now have full bars shown everywhere in my house. This never happened before and as previously mentioned, I always had the worst signal reception when I was closest to my router and almost would never get a connection. However, I am highly skeptical. Basically, my connection speed seems slower than ever, it takes 10x longer to download or play videos online (i.e. youtube) and the signal drops while performing seemingly basic tasks (mainly when clicking on links on varies websites) along when on youtube and other video sites.

Also, when I run the manual diagnostics program I get "passed" on all test results except the ping test says "failed". Does anyone know what this might mean? Perhaps I do not have my router properly set? Is there any other software I can download to perform tests? I would like to provide everyone here with as much information as possible.

The connection is definitely much better than previously reported so obviously the software and/or driver download did something. However, the continuous dropped connection is extremely frustrating especially when I supposedly have a full bar connection.

[j0emv]

As an update, this is going to sound mixed up but I ran into the same frequent disconnect isue again after tweaking the settings I mentioned in my last post. I changed the Power Management setting to the highest value, meaning best performance over battery life and that seems to have solved it. I'll be doing further testing around the building today but i'm looking at a notebook right now and after changing that setting, the connection stablized.

[DrPhlux]

Using: Dell XPS M1710 With 64-bit Vista Business.
NIC: 3945ABG with 11.5.0.32 driver from Dell.


Symptoms are short but frequent network dropouts when using "heavy" network applications.
The dropouts are especially shown when trying to use Google Earth. This application have been
rendered useless after installing Vista.

I've tried all the different power settings with no avail.

I'm actually thinking about buying a new NIC. maybe "Intel 4965AGN" will fix the problem?

[DrPhlux]

DrPhlux, on Mar 6 2008, 02:15 PM, said:

I'm actually thinking about buying a new NIC. maybe "Intel 4965AGN" will fix the problem?

Have successfully replaced the "Vista troubled" 3945 Card with:
Intel® Wireless 4965AGN

All my previous network problems are now gone.

Case SOLVED.