Acer Laptop wireless

[gboy]

Hi

I have something realy strange. I have 2 acer aspire 3620 laptops bought within a month of each other. they are exacly the same spec. execpt i found out that one has a brodcom wirless chip and the other one has a atheros wireless chip. now I have a wireless network provided by a d-link ap. When i scan for networks whith the laptop with the atheros chip I recive my network and about 12 others. when i scan with the laptop with the brodcom chip I only pick up one or 2 networks, not mine, I can connect to one of the networks so the adapter is working. this is fustrating as well as strange, please help as i can not get any from acer. I have downloaded the new drivers from the acer website but they do not help.

regards

 

[squirrel]

Try using a program called NetStumbler to see if you pick it up. What happens if you stand near the router?

 

[gboy]

hi thanks for the reply.

Netstumbler does not pick anything up, not my ap or any of the 12 or so i pic up with a normal windows scan.

even if i stand next to the ap with the laptop. and do a windows scan nothing is picked up.

 

[mancombseepgood]

check adapter settings - make sure that b and g modes are enabled. Also... there is a huge difference in power and range from card to card. I find that centrino based cards are effective.

 

[bdt]

I find that centrino based cards are effective.

The baseline model for this is the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG and is at least competent, but not exceptional* performer. (I yanked the old Wireless B POS I had in my Acer notebook for a Senao 5354MP way back and it's a GREAT card ..actually, sometimes TOO good but that's a separate matter) ...*link is for the Senao NMP-8602 miniPCI card.

gboy: by way of helping us to help you, maybe you could get HWiNFO on your respective machines and post the findings from that app here so we know exactly what we're talking about here ..or at least what device manager reports are your wireless network devices (specifically: name, rank and serial nr ..make that make and model nr please)

Also, to get things all working the same way, I find it useful to get around all the different vendor Wi-Fi management apps by (manually if necessary) switching on XP's built-in WZC (wireless zero configuration) service. Yes, I know it cuts off possibly fun and interesting aspects of the vendor's control app, but we're not interested in that right now: what we (or at least I) want is just to have ONE way to switch Wi-Fi on and know it is on without having to futz with different apps. Aside: I see that using WZC is controversial, there seem to be as many for it as against it; again, a separate issue.

Anyhow (and admitting you may have been through all this anyway), maybe repeast the Netstumbler signal strength tests (and I, for one, would love to see the differences between the two devices (you CAN save (and email) the session files..)

please help as i can not get any from acer.

Don't hold your breath man; much as I love my TravelMate 800, I despise Acer "support", they're nearly as sucktastic as Telkom are beneficial to the .za economy! But, in the end, if you don't come right with the one with the Broadcom card: it so happens I've got 2x 2200BG cards that I bought for a recent job that it turns out I didn't need (grrr at (l)user not explaining things clearly over the phone!) that are brand new and still sealed (cards in their antistat baggies, CDs in their sleeves) and I'd be happy to send one off to a good home! PM me if you're interested ..also for the aforementioned NMP-8602 if you're happy to spend more money on it, but until I won't guarantee that it'll fit (it's down to how long the antenna cables are) until I've seen under the hood. In my travails with upgrading notebooks I've found that the 2200BG card will almost always fit while the Senao cards, fabulous as they are, have their connectors in a different (and often unreachable) configuration.

 

[gboy]

Hi thanks for the support.

I got hold of the cisco lynksys wirless router and both laptops connect to it with no problem. there must issue between d-link access points and the acer broadcom adapters.


thanks again