Update Your Laptop's Wireless Network Card Drivers
(VERY IMPORTANT !!!)s
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Are you dropping your wireless network connection
often in the library or classrooms? |
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Do you notice that when only a few people in your area
are connected to wireless you stay connected but when lots of people are around with laptops your connection drops? |
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| Does it seem that wireless works better at home than it does at the law school? | ||||||||
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Errors or drop-outs such as these can be caused by many reasons, but
the most probable cause is your laptop's wireless driver.
Older drivers (such as anything dated before June 2005) were
not written for Microsoft XP 2003 SP2 or designed to work in a
multiple access point environment like our library, classrooms or
public spaces, and can cause your laptop to periodically drop its
link. They may work well at home or at a WIFI hotspot where only one
or a few wireless devices are connected simultaneously, but once
multiple points and devices are involved, they can fail... |
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While our Cisco Airespace wireless system is designed to work well in
a large, open environment with multiple access points within range
of each other and support 70 or more users per AP (but we like a
24-1 ratio), your wireless network card must work effectively with
it so that data will pass reliable and your link will remain active.
Also, and more importantly to your fellow students, as all wireless
systems and APs operate as SHARED user resources, the
inability of one wireless network card to communicate efficiently
with an AP can degrade the performance of all laptops connected to
that AP, including dropping OTHER LAPTOPS from their connection.
(That's why you see your link speed slowly dropping off during a
session, or feel a decrease in speed when an 11mb B card user comes
into range of your AP... even though you have a 54mb G card!) |
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| So what can you do to make your connection more reliable? | ||||||||
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1. Check Your Laptop's Wireless Network Card Driver Date - (Click here to see how) Having the latest driver will
ensure that your card is working at its optimum efficiency. Once
updated check back every month or so to your laptop manufacturer's
support webpage (IBM, Dell, etc.) to see if new updates have been
released.
Please Note: Driver updates are different than the
automatic Microsoft updates or Norton updates that occur in the
background of XP and usually have to be performed manually.
Clicking on the "update driver" button on the driver version display
page usually does not work. To assist you in locating the
proper driver for your laptop we post the most common card updates
(Intel's 2200/2915) in our DOWNLOAD CENTER located on our law
school technology homepage, as well as links to the support pages of
most laptop manufacturers. |
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| 2. Make sure your wireless settings are correct - Having the correct settings will make all the difference when trying to connect to any network. Windows XP (especially Home) can change these settings on its own, which can leave you wondering what happened. Learn what the proper settings are for your laptop and how to reset them. | ||||||||
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Here's a few hints: |
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3. Make sure your Windows Updates are up to date. Make
sure to turn on automatic updates in XP. This makes updating
XP easy, especially security updates. |
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4. Keep your Anti-Spy and Anti-Virus up to date and run checks
often - If your laptop suddenly "feels" different, such as
Windows boots abnormally slow, programs run poorly, pop-ups occur or
settings change on their own, run an Anti-spy and Anti-virus check.
Spyware is the most common cause of computer problems and keeping
your anti-spy up to date can help avoid trouble. If you can, set
your anti-spy to auto scan every night and check to see if your
anti-virus program is loaded and automatically updating.
Sometimes viruses block anti-spy and anti-virus updating to avoid
being removed. |
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| 5. Bring your laptop to the law helpdesk for a check-up ! - When in doubt about any computer issue, bring your laptop to the law helpdesk and ask for help. | ||||||||
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Want to know more about our wireless and what can happen in a
multi-AP, multi-user environment? Click here...
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