wireless and XP !@#%#$

[spigidygak]

Well I loaded up XP on my sister's laptop and now the wireless range is crappier than being wired. . . Before she had 98se running on it and the range was good enough to use around the whole house. Now she'll be lucky to get a signal 10 feet away from the access point. My guess is something about XP being crappy as hell. I have a SMC router and its a SMC card. I know it can't be anything else since my ibook with airport is working the same. So anybody have any similar experiences with XP sucking with wi-fi and any fixes?

[NuTs62]

I think I may have the same problem as you, sorry don't have a solution. Are you running XP on your system, on the laptop, or both? I noticed after I installed XP onto my system, I encountered the same problem. My sister's computer is running Win2000.

I'm using the SMC7004AWBR. My system is plugged in directly to the router. My sister's desktop PC is using the SMC2602W Wireless PCI Card. Previously, she was able to connect on and off. She'd get disconnected every so often, and rebooting would do the trick. Now she's unable to get internet. I tried logging on to the router from her computer, and that worked fine, but no luck getting out to the net (with the exception of one time). I get around 53-66% connection, from what it says.

I've updated all the drivers & firmware SMC has available, all the windows updates, but I'm baffled as to why its doing this too. Hope someone here at G|A can be of assistance. If you figure it out, please let me know :)

[Apex]

You're using SMC software and drivers right, with XP wireless autoconfigure disabled?

[spigidygak]

Yes I'm using the SMC software and drivers, but how do I check if the XP autoconfig is off?

[JPR]

Administrative tools- Services

There is a servie labled "Wireless Conifg" something. Anyways right click on it, choose, properties, under start up choose "disabled" then below choose "stop."

[spigidygak]

Well I disabled the XP default settings or whatever. . . but the range is still craptacular. I guess XP just doesn't like it or maybe its emitting some weird frequency intefering with the card. . .