netbook cant find domain using wireless

[Little-Miss]

I've just imaged some new netbooks. Problem is i cant get them to connect to our managed wireless. It keeps telling me it cant reach the domain when i try to login. When the netbooks are cabled in and log into the network, the wireless is quite happily running and will continue to run when i unplug the cable.

 

I think what im trying to say is i cant login wirelessly.

 

Ive placed it in the OU which is linked to the wireless, have i missed something else?

[ijk]

Are the wireless NICs configured by Windows or by a third party application such as something from Intel?

If the former, I'm afraid I can't help further, if the latter then you may succeed by disabling that software (which may only run after logging into Windows, hence no wireless pre-login) and using Windows to configure the card.

[Little-Miss]

Windows is managing the wireless. I try not to use 3rd party software.

 

I just cant get my head around why my other netbooks will logon on perfectly. But these just will not authenticate during boot up.

[Mark-Vital]

Hey,

 

Not too sure, but is there anything differing in the BIOS between the old and new netbooks which may be stopping the WLAN card from starting until after windows boots? It wasn't the same situation but i remember a similar setting preventing some laptops logging onto a dmoain a year sor so ago.

 

Mark

[FN-GM]

have you tried a different wireless driver?

[round2it]

if you log on to the machine locally can you connect the wireless access point?

[Mark-Vital]

I don't think the issue is the wireless driver or OS-based, the issue is that the WLAN card isn't coming up in time to connect and authenticate to the wireless before the OS boots. I'm guessing that once the OS has booted and you can log on locally it would be fine and connected. But as the wireless card is not picking up the WLAN till post-OS by that point it won't be able to pick up policies nor have access to the DC for user authentication

 

So it could be something BIOS or hardware based, although i may be misunderstanding the issue.

[Little-Miss]

Damn, nothing in the bios...

 

It's XP, have played with drivers but will look again. If i log on locally i can log into our guest account.

[Mark-Vital]

What sort of managed wireless solution are you using, sorry i missed that word when i read the original post. And what model of netbooks are you using?

 

If logged on locally and can connect to guest wireless account, are there any settings domain policy wise which could be stopping the netbooks authenticating pre-windows?

 

I'm not sure of exactly what is wrong, but just throwing ideas out which might lead to a solution.

[Little-Miss]

Any ideas are great at the moment, really stumped.

 

It's a HP setup. The Netbooks i am having problems with are Toshiba NB300's.

 

They are in the OU that is linked to the Authentication. Have noticed that the certification service seems to have issues the troubled Netbooks 2 certificates.....

[sted]

try adding this reg file to one of them see if it helps it makes the pc wait longer before "giving up" trying to find a network (xp only not tested on win7)

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"GpNetworkStartTimeoutPolicyValue"=dword:0000003c

[Little-Miss]

Ok, tried the reg entry. No difference.

[andydis]

hi little miss, i hope i am not teaching you to suck eggs but can we go back to basics.

 

start up a netbook, login LOCALLY

open up a cmd prompt

 

is your wireless connected?

is the wireless service started? is it set to auto?

can you ping the domain?

can you ping pdc?

whats your DNS server?

whats your DHCP server?

 

What wireless driver version do you have?

what make is it?>

is there an updated driver on the wireless manufactueres website ( e.g. broadcom) and NOT the manufacturer of the laptop

[Little-Miss]

Yay me!!!

 

School boy(?!) error i think! Even though i had physically moved them into the OU, they werent in a group called Wireless. Odd as i have never had to do that before.....but hey ho!!! eeeeeeeeeee!!

[round2it]

we all do it little miss

 

glad its fixed

[TechSupp]

On a similar vein, but not the sa,e solution as little-miss, I just set up some Samsung N130's, set them up using wireless and though all was OK, but then found when used in anger that quite a few would not find the domain when logging on. Came down to the fact that I had left the manufacturers software on even though using windows to connect (as mentioned earlier in the thread) and it was delaying the initialisation of the wirless. Took it off and just installed the driver only and hey presto, connection each time :-) One to watch out for there. Don't know why Ive not come accross that before as I 've set up must be 60 odd other netbooks? May now just go back when I have chance and do the same to the others. May be the cure to the odd ones which don't connect to the domain when logging on. Was never a major problem before, after this lets hope its not a problem again! Hope to soon move to Ruckus eventually with some of the schools over this next year.