Windows 7 wireless connection troubles

[Badzeye]

Hello everyone

 

I think this is the best forum for the problem I am having.

 

I have recently upgraded all of our computers to Windows 7 and since then I have been having issues with wireless clients accessing the network. The worst of these is some of our netbooks that the students use will not connect to the wireless when they startup. When and why this happens I cannot figure out sometimes a machine can boot up and a user can log on fine. Other times on the same machine after starting the machine up the machine will not connect to the wireless untill I log in as the local administrator or a user whos profile is already cached on the machine and manualy connect to the wireless and it is fine then untill it decides to not connect again.

 

I have upgraded them to the newest version of the drivers and tested a few of the previous versions of the drivers. The machines were all given at least 2Gb of RAM as part of the upgrade to windows 7. I have disabled power managment on the wireless cards as Windows 7 sometimes likes to turn off the card to save power. I have thought it may be the wireless profile corrupting but simply clicking connect fixes the issue and I do not have to re-enter any credentials so I do not think this is the case. I have also hears that sometimes anti-viruses (we use Sophos) can sometimes disable the network card on startup but this problem happens on machine that have no anti virus installed.

 

The wireless adapter is enabled and the light shows it as enabled aswell. I am really stuck as to why this is happening or how to resolve this.

 

Any thoughts as to what this issue is would be appreciated.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Badzeye

[SHimmer45]

had a similar issue with 7 not correctly getting the network type, turns out that for each user they needed to select what type of network it was for it to connect properly and get an IP (workgroup based Win7 starter)

as there was only 1 accounts on the couple of laptops i just made the choice for them and its been ok for a few weeks, i believe you can force the behaviour in policy about how it treats new/existing networks

[Badzeye]

Since the laptops are all connected to the domain the connection type is changed to domain and the usrs cannot change this. I will check next time im told one of them has done this and see if the connection type is changing for some reason and see if there is a way of enforcing which connection type ot use.

[mac_shinobi]

Are you using windows ( control panel --> Network and Sharing Centre -> Manage or configure wireless networks --> Add Profile --> then enter in all the wireless info ie SSID, encryption methods and type ie TKIP / AES, password / passphrase etc etc and then next and finish or is this through a utility like Intel wireless utility / access connections or some other software ?

[Badzeye]

Yes through the network and sharing centre. I dont have a wireless utility on the machines.

[mac_shinobi]

Presume you check / tick the relevant tick boxes to always connect to said wireless network even if it is not broadcasting etc

[Michael]

I think the only time I've seen problems with Windows 7 and wireless, is in mix-match environments - in other words WAPs which support WPA-PSK TKIP/AES or WPA2-PSK TKIP/AES.

 

Sticking to a single encryption type WPA2-PSK AES (recommended) problems soon disappear. I've noticed this at quite a few sites.

[Badzeye]

I have made sure to set up automaticly connect to the wireless on startup and even if the network is not broadcasting. All the APs are using the same encryption the clients i have had to rejoin to the wireless i have not had to change which authentication type they are using. If the client and the AP are using different authentication types then it will stop the connection all together and not allow you to attempt it I think. Thank you for the suggestions.

[Michael]

Just to clarify what I meant, some WAPs allow you to select dual encryption types at the same time. So for example WPA-PSK or WPA2-PSK and this is where the problems start.

 

Selecting just WPA2-PSK AES as the only available encryption type, all devices these days should be capable of connecting to networks using this form of encryption - ever since Windows XP SP2 or later, with the correct drivers installed of course!

[psydii]

Try the following hotfixes:

Event ID 5719 and event ID 1129 may be logged when a non-Microsoft DHCP Relay Agent is used

Slow performance when you enable IPsec encryption on a specific TCP port number in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

Variable %userdomain% roaming profile path is not resolved correctly in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista

Stale user profile folders are not deleted completely in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

They may not be directly relevant but they do contain earlier hotfixes that improve network connectivity, and user profiles.

[Badzeye]

I have had a look at the hotfixes and the profiles not being deleted completley and DHCP problem do apply to a few machines i have seen. However with my problem of computers not joining the wireless they have not helped. I have discovered that when the machine cannot join the wireless it can remain attempting to connect indefinetly but I plug in a newtwork lead and get onto the network that way the machine joins the wireless automaticaly. Do you have any thoughts as to what this coould be?

[psydii]

For me it was a combination of drivers, hotfixes and firmware updates that finally sorted out connectivity issues. And it took months.

Can you update your AP firmware?

[Badzeye]

An upgrade for the firmware is on the cards but wont be any time soon. If I get a computer that is having the issue and plug ina network lead the wireless connects almost immediatley after. Which could be a problem with DHCP and the wireless trying to get an ip adress.

[Pete10141748]

I've had this problem for months, and months, and "£$&*%£ months! Whatever I do I can't get rid of it, the closest I've gotten is whenever a user turns the laptop on and logs in they get a temp profile, logs off then on again and gets the proper profile.

 

Really annoying issue, and only happens to a few specific laptop & netbook models we have; the staff ones work fine, it's the pupil ones that keep screwing up like this.

[psydii]

I feel your pain. We've just come through it. So very glad we had support and maintenance contracts in place.