XP. Wireless won't connect until logged in?

[reggiep]

Hi All,

I have one laptop from a group of five that is causing much head scratching!

 

When booted up it will not connect to the wireless access point that it has been told to. We have to log in as the local admin and connect it to the wireless and then log off. Once done the user is fine using it until a reboot?

 

Has anyone seen this before and if so any tips?

 

Thanks

[Potato-Peeler]

have you rich clicked on the properties of the wireless connection and told it what its default wireless should be?

[sjl]

This old chestnut! I’ve had fun and games like this before. I’ve fixed it a number of ways in the past by updating WLAN drivers, checking the settings in the BIOS and enabling its WOL features. Another one was power options on the card in device manager. One in particular was laptops with old Intel WLAN cards for them I had to use their utility that comes with Intel Pro Wireless software. You can use it so it takes control at login and you get a verbose of what’s going on. So, searching for network… found network … authenticating …lgetting IP … looking for Domain Controller. That works great – one catch though it has to be an Intel card!

 

Like I said earlier your best bet is looking at the option for the card in the BIOS and also the options in Device Manager for that card. And obviously get the latest version of the driver – which you probably already have I would imagine.

 

Good luck!

[Jon]

Are you using windows to control your wireless network connections?

 

I have had problems with third party software ie Intel, Dell, not being able to connect pre logon.

 

If you use the native windows zero configuation this will always connect pre logon. I have found this to be much more reliable.

[Michael]

Glad I'm not the only one who has wireless problems! Make sure the wireless drivers you're using are signed. I've also found some adapters/drivers connect to WEP much more easily than WPA. The overheads of WPA are slightly greater, but in some instances I've found it made all the difference!

[soveryapt]

Glad I'm not the only one who has wireless problems! Make sure the wireless drivers you're using are signed. I've also found some adapters/drivers connect to WEP much more easily than WPA. The overheads of WPA are slightly greater, but in some instances I've found it made all the difference!

 

I've had the reverse, just changed one of my schools to WPA+WPA2 as all the machines decided they didn't like to connect to WEP anymore (using the Windows Zero Config tool).

 

I found that on rebuilds of some machines, they just didn't want to connect and I tried all sorts to make them, before I thought, hmmmm, I don't like the WEP settings we have, what happens if I change them. Yes, ok, meant I spent an hour or two running round updating everyones WiFi settings, but what the heck.

 

[m25man]

Watch out for "Soft" Wifi buttons on some laptops!

 

Some buttons dont work until the windows drivers for the manufacturers keyboard extensions are loaded!

 

Had a few Acers with this exact issue and an Advent, turned wifi off by the button unable to turn wifi back on until windows has fully loaded and logged into - button then works again!

Each time had to login as local admin or give users local admin rights!

 

A BIOS update fixed this problem for me.

 

If your laptop has a soft touch on/off switch on it as opposed to a hard wifi on/off slide or contact switch, make sure that you have the OEM keyboard extension drivers loaded.