Wednesday, February 10, 2010

WiFi = Wireless, FINALLY!

Back when I applied Win XP SP3 to this laptop... in other words, years ago... that "upgrade" broke my wireless connection at home. WiFi continued to work many other places, just not at home. Somehow, for this combination of network card (RaLink) and router (LinkSys), things went into an endless loop of connecting... disconnecting... connecting... disconnecting... at approximately one-second intervals.

Scouring the M$ site and the boards yielded nothing useful. Finally I said "screw it" and bought a 100-foot Cat 5 cable, which was long enough for most any likely location in my old apartment. A few weeks ago I strung it here, from the router in the office, over and under a number of doors and pieces of furniture, to the big recliner in the den.

Today, after receiving the Windows update, I happened to glance at the Hardware (Optional) update list. There it was: the driver of my dreams for the Ralink card! Was it always listed? did I overlook it repeatedly for years? I feel a bit foolish, but I thought I had checked that years ago.

I suspect Stella will be very glad to see the last of the 100-foot cable!

2 comments:

  1. I had the same problem with Vista and my wireless, even though the laptop is permanently on my desk, three feet away from the wireless router antenna. I had to plug in the hose.

    Changing to W7 made it work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i have some cats that will take care of that cable for you....

    ReplyDelete

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