Firmware and Driver Updates
Both your wireless router and wireless card, whether an add-on or built-in to your computer, are driven by software "brains". The brains of your wireless router is known as firmware. The brains of your wireless card is known as a driver.
Manufacturers often update their firmwares and drivers to add features and fix bugs. When you remove your hardware from its box, the firmware and drivers included may already be slightly outdated. Many times, this isn't a problem, because the bugs that do exist are often obscure and affect only certain unusual situations. But you never know.
There is something to be said for the adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." If your wireless network is performing up to your expectations, there's really no need to muck around with updating your firmware and drivers. But if you are having mysterious problems — particularly dropped connections — that's a different story.
Often, updating your firmware and drivers turns out to be just the fix to gaining a stable connection.
Most wireless routers let you update the firmware through the browser-based administration interface. The process involves just a few simple steps:
1. Visit the manufacturer's site for your wireless router.
2. Navigate to the Downloads area and find the firmware for your specific model of wireless router.
3. Download the firmware and save or unpack it onto your computer (follow the manufacturer's instructions).
4. Connect your computer to the router using a wired Ethernet cable, and disable your wireless connection. It's not safe to upgrade your router's firmware over a wireless connection.
5. Open the administration page for your wireless router. Our example is from a ZyXEL brand X-550 router — yours may look different.
6. Open the firmware upgrade administration page and follow the prompts to open the firmware file you downloaded.
7. Once you begin the firmware upgrade process, do nothing. Any interruption in the process, from a lost connection to a power outage, could damage your router. Before doing this at all, be sure to check the manual for your particular model. Procedures may vary.
More often than not, updating the wireless router firmware solves many mysterious network problems. But if it doesn't, the next suspects are the wireless drivers in your computer.
If possible, test other wireless computers in your network. Do they experience the same dropped connections as yours? If not, you may want to update the drivers of your wireless card. Procedures vary widely, so consult the Web site of your portable manufacturer, or the maker of your wireless card, for downloads and instructions to update your drivers.
Duplicate Network Names
Another scenario that may lead to dropped connections occurs when your wireless computer is confused about which wireless access point to connect with.
If your home or office is near others, they may have a wireless network with the same name as yours. This is especially common when people don't change their network names (known as SSID's) when setting up their router. In Part 2, Step 6 of this series we configured the network name.
Suppose you didn't change your wireless network name, so it defaults to the very common "LINKSYS". Your neighbor next door has the same brand of router and didn't change her network name either. If your wireless networks overlap, your computer can see both. Windows XP will not show both as separate available networks — instead, it will show only "LINKSYS."
When you connect to "LINKSYS" Windows will try to connect with the one with a stronger signal. It may be that both your signals are similar, but small fluctuations change which is stronger at any given moment. Windows will start hopping between them, trying to stay with the strongest, and dropping your connection with each transfer.
The solution? Assign your wireless network a unique name and avoid the duplicate SSID problem.
802.1x Authentication
In Part 2 of this series, we looked in detail at securing your wireless network, either with WEP or, better, WPA or, better yet, WPA2. Some organizations employ another form of security, known as 802.1x. Unless you are inside a network that uses 802.1x, you don't need Windows to attempt 802.1x authentication. When it does so, it may interrupt your connection.
You can disable 802.1x authentication in Windows XP by going into your Control Panel, Network, and opening the Properties page for your wireless connection.
Look for the property tab labeled Authentication — its exact location may vary.
Uncheck 802.1x authentication.
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