Very strange wifi problem

I've been using a laptop at home for several years now. The current model has been fine until last night..and now it's gone totally doolally.

The sequence of events:
1.At about 1810 I fire it up to log onto my MMORPG for five minutes.
2.Just as the game is launching I get the Windows Update 'This machine will restart in five minutes'.
3.I log onto the game, do what I need and decide to shutdown.
...
4.Later in the evening I decide to do some surfing with the laptop. It boots up okay but the wifi connection keeps dropping and running pitifully slowly. At one point it 'recovers' to full speed but then fails again.
5.I look to see what other networks are around and discover a new one (according to Windows-more later). The new network is curiously named 'UCLAWLAN'.
6.Eventually my laptop gives up completely and all it can see is the UCLAWLAN network so I launch NetStumbler.
7.It reports the same three wifi networks that I expect from my neighbours. No sign of UCLAWLAN.
8.I tried a system restore to back out the update but that didn't help.
9.I plugged the laptop into my wired network (which works fine) and downloaded drivers for the wifi. No change.

10.So as of now I have a laptop than can only connect using a wired connection and that claims it is detecting a signal from the University of California, Loss Angeles WLAN. To be fair it does report the signal as 'weak' and show only one bar :-/

Anyone got any suggestions? I guess my next option is to run the recovery disks and put Windows back on it but it's a bit of a pain.

Edited by Andrue (Fri 11-Jul-08 08:07:44)

Try changing the channel your wifi broadcasts on and then reconnect... shot in the dark?

Yeah, that's on my list for the weekend.

I suppose the next step is to boot into safe mode and delete any references that sound related. Hopefully that will trigger device recognition.

If that doesn't work it'll be time for recovery disks

Hi, sounds like you are connecting to another wireless network, have you used the Repair connection facility to sort it?

Maybe your system has been compromised and you are connecting to California via Dial-up http://www.bol.ucla.edu/services/dialup/

http://www.bol.ucla.edu/

Configure your LAN (Local Area Network) with Static IP Address for a more reliable wireless and Ethernet connection.

http://www.homenethelp.com/web/howto/static-ip-address.asp

Some interesting points, thanks.

Been doing a little more research and another possibility is XP SP3. Apparently that has mucked up a lot of people's connections. Strange that my machine has only just become so bad but now I think about it I don't use the laptop much.

Perhaps it's taken it this long to finally pull down SP3.

Have you tried rebooting the wireless router / access point or whatever it is (you don't seem to say)?

It certainly sounds more like the problem is on the network end than the laptop.

Edited by deleted (Sat 12-Jul-08 16:15:29)

Not at the time but the router is powered off overnight. I don't think it's the router's problem because my laptop is unable to see any network except the mythical 'UCLAWLAN' one. There are normally three networks in range and to lose sight of all three at the same time puts the blame firmly on my laptop I think.

Anyway the current situation is that I uninstalled the Acer 'eNet Manager' and it seems fine now. I read a few comments on the web where XP SP3 reactivated OEM wifi managers (I had disabled it) causing a conflict with Windows zero-point configuration. It looks like that might have been the case for me. I wish OEMs wouldn't provide their own managers. They all seem to be far more trouble than they are worth.

I'm still seeing the UCLAWLAN network so that might be genuine but for now it seems my machine is stable again.

Edited by Andrue (Sat 12-Jul-08 22:19:20)