This problem is ONLY when you initially boot the PC.
As one would expect, you should be able to surf the net after the system is booted up. With this notebook, as soon as it is booted, it will NOT be connected to the wireless network even though it says it is. So, literally every time you boot, you either have to choose the network again, or hit "Repair" on the network, and then you can gain access to the internet. The dialog box pops up saying it is now connected to the network.
The IP address, subnet, gateway... everything are all the same, it just finally now connects to the net.
This happened after I enabled WPA-PSK on the router since these people were running a completely open network.
I tried a couple things, but quickly ran out of ideas... granted I have one idea (flushing some ****). I saw that there was one network device set to the default, so I unchecked that, rebooted... nothing. I made sure the driver was up-to-date... rebooted, nothing. I tried one or two other simple things, but still nothing.
The notebook is almost 3 years old and has never been reformatted. It runs Norton Internet Security Suite... which absolutely blows, BTW, and some other software. It is used for business purposes.
The wireless card that these people have is the Linksys WPC54G Version 3. I'm uncertain on the router as it was provided by their ISP (TDS.net).
Now, the notebook irritated the hell out of me because it constantly shuts itself down. When you return to Windows, you return to an unsaved state. I'm willing to bet it is heat related, but there is nothing that says it is shutting down to prevent hardware damage or whatnot. I wanted to get a thermal reading, but the BIOS is so limited, it didn't even have a health monitor. I don't even want to try flashing it because if something goes wring, it's my fault. Granted, it could possibly be one of those easy "Click the exe" flash utilities, which I like. But still, what happens if it shuts down while I'm flashing? I'm screwed...
The battery is shot as it won't hold a charge for more than 10-20 minutes, but this notebook is constantly plugged into an outlet, so that kills that idea... I would think anyway.
I noticed that Norton loves to suck up 100% of the resources for the first 10-15 minutes that the system is booted, and that could possibly contribute to the heat problem, but I'm uncertain. Now, it doesn't just shut down on the initial boot, but other random times while using it. That's bad for business use.
I am going to clean out the fan since I'm uncertain if the owners have ever done that... but that's only a start.
I know I've read of some people having problems with the 5100's, but I know little about their problems in general.
I'm going back to this customers house next week after the RAM for the notebook comes in. **Ordered the wrong stuff by mistake the first time...
**Sorry for the lengthy post, but any help is appreciated on both issues.
-Brian
