Athlon 800/256 asus a7v bios 1011 safecom swlpt-54125 wireless pci adapter. I'm having real difficulty getting this machine to run on a wireless network. The m/b is an old asus a7v, the wireless is safecom pci card. The network is a wireless lan, into a smc router, with one pc as internet gateway. There are three other pc's on the wireless, using the same cards, in different parts of the house and they all work fine. When I try to set up the network, and scan for available networks, it often doesn't see it, and if it does, the setup fails. I've moved the machine next to another (with same card) that has good signal, and it still wont see the network. ipconfig remains 'media disconnected'. All firewalls on the router are off. All ip's have been checked and the net key. However, it did work for a couple of days, then it went kapput after it auto-disconnected and then tried to re-connect to a neighbour's network. After this I formatted c and started again - same result. I really want to know what the problem is - if it's an irq allocation problem? Byte merging on the pci buss? via 4in1? Promise ata100 drivers (which I haven't updated since going xp)? We have been working on this problem for two weeks and need serious help!

> "... it often doesn't see it, and if it does, the setup fails..." Does change in location on the PC make a difference as to when it may/may_not see it? Also at what point specifically during the "setup" are you failing? Are there any error related to the failure to connect? Any errors you can find in the Event Viewer that might be related to the issue? Also are there any critical updates related to networking (specifically wireless networking) that might need to be done on the PC? Also is it possible that the card went bad after it's install? Possible recomendation would be to pull one of the working cards out of the other PCs and try it in the non-working one. I would not recommend putting the non-working card into a good pc as you might corrupt that environment, but pulling a good card out of a working PC and putting it back in between boots should not effect the good pc (provided you put it back in the same PCI slot). Past that I might try seeing if there any driver/software conflicts with the bad computers networking ability and/or networking hardware, or maybe try the bad card in a different PCI slot. a bunch of guess working going on here, but hopefully that might offer some ideas to further diagnose and narrow the issue. Let me know how it goes! Michael Live, Love & Google!

Try disableing the onboard nic. It might be looking to the wrong card to gain access.

Sorry for the delay in replying Michael. Anyway - swapped the cards over, the old one works fine (the pc i'm using has it in), same problem in the other machine with other card. I've tried the computer in a different room next to another that has signal, but it behaves the same. There aren't any errors, it just fails to detect the network. The ssic of the network pops up occasionally, along with a few others, only to dissappear again (not all simultaneously). This is bit is like there is a bad signal - in fact i'd be sure it was other than the other computers rekon it's a good signal! Your right, this is a lot of guesswork. I'm interested in if there are any updates - I put all the windows extras on to no avail. I'm thinking there might be some sort of m/b update that is required. I updated the promise ata100 drivers. No effect, however i did this after instal, so i will uninstall and try again. Next thing is to assign the card it's own irq. Whodat - i will try and find any onboard nic - it is not in my devices list but will look in the m/b manual to find if there are any jumpers or such like that need sorting if it is already disabled. The oddest thing is that last week, after the first time I installed xp, it worked for two days with medium/good signal! Obviuosly something isn't right but what!?!? Anymare ides would be most appreciated.

so the swapped cards worked fine and the bad computer kept the same symptoms even with a known working card. Additionally it sounds like your response to Wombat means that you may not have either on onboard nic, or PCI network card (other than your wireless)? You've ruled out card and pretty much environment issues by moving the good&bad PCs around and having the same results in any location... so I think it would be related to the individual PC only. Additionally it sounds like this is a fairly new install, right? And that your card worked for a few days before it stopped? Then it might be an issue with an update/program that was installed that may have conflicted with the network card. If you are going to do a re-install, then maybe install your apps,devices,drivers,updates,etc. one at a time checking to ensure that your network card is working between each. Maybe you will discover which install is causing the issue. Additionally before you re-install everything you might just want to remove the card, boot it up so that it's detected removed, and then re-install the card and drivers, see if that corrects any issues. There are also a few different options with the wireless cards to set your SSID so you don't have to find/search as well as tell it to use only that SSID and prevent it from roaming for others when the signal gets week. I wish I could be a bit more help... maybe someone who has a bit more experience with wireless cards could offer some better info. Michael Live, Love & Google!