How Have You Solved Your Vista Laptop Internet Connections Problems?

[Kaylee]

One of the ways that Vista is inferior to XP is that when a laptop comes out of sleep mode, most owners* experience not being able to reconnect to the internet unless they reboot. And as everyone knows, rebooting on Vista takes a very, very long time. It is extremely annoying and a major waste of time. (I don’t know if Vista desktop owners have the same internet connection problem coming out of sleep mode.)

Searching the internet, I see that some people have claimed to solve this problem. I’m still working through the various solutions. Most of them appear to be summarized here:
http://www.vistaforums.com/Forum/Topic13955-45-1.aspx


Additional solutions claimed:
1) Go into the device manager (Start --> Control Panel --> Hardware and Sound --> Device Manager), right click on your network adapter, select properties, click on the power management tab, and then uncheck this box: Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. (This didn't work for me.)

2) Some have claimed the above solution works if you also give your computer a static IP (IPv4). (This didn’t work for me.)

3) Some claim they can regain the connection to the internet if they disable and reenable the network adapter. You can do this by right clicking on it in the Device Manager screen. Others preferred to do this by writing a small batch file with these devcon commands:

devcon disable “[hardware ID]”
devcon enable “[hardware ID]”

(You have to get the free devcon utility from MS.)

That didn’t work for me. (Are you seeing a pattern here? ) I have the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG adapter and it will not disable until you reboot the machine. Which defeats the whole point.

My next attempt will be – to never let my PC go into sleep mode. I went into the menu that lets you change that option. I changed it from when the machine is plugged in go into sleep mode after being idle for one hour to never going into sleep mode. (My PC will still go into sleep mode if I close the lid though – there’s no place for the heat to go if the lid is closed, so I didn’t change that option.)

I expect that will work. Then again, I though that the other options I tried earlier would work also.

Anyway, misery loves company. While waiting to see if this option works, I thought I’d see what the other Vista Laptop owners have done here. Surely I can’t be the only one?

ETA: Poll votes are public.



* Note: I’m speculating that this is the case based on exhaustively searching and reading various tech forums over the past 10 days.

 

[Kaylee]

Mods, is it too late to add a 5th option to the poll?

"Haven’t solved it yet, but I will never quit trying (post solutions you tried)."


ETA: Thanks mods!

 

[elgarak]

I didn't even know there was a problem, since I run Vista in a Virtual Machine on my Mac... from a partition called "Niska's Skyplex" (i.e. a dark and disturbing place where you get tortured)...

And the only reason I even did put Vista in there is because my university stopped selling XP volume licenses for staff and faculty. (Well, there's a also a geeky coolness about the whole thing.)

 

[Starthinker]

I've always disabled sleep and hibernation an any XP or Vista machine in my network. I've never seen it work right.

 

[Kaylee]

I've always disabled sleep and hibernation an any XP or Vista machine in my network. I've never seen it work right.

Interesting. I returned an HP laptop because the sleep/hibernate mode was flakey when I first got it. I had to eat the restocking charge. Grrrr! I'll never go back to Best Buy again, but that is another story.

I thought Toshiba was handling it OK, but I didn't make the sleep mode connection to my internet connection problems for a long time. Not until I saw it pointed out on the web in many, many posts to various tech forums.

So, I guess I didn't have to return the HP laptop after all, because it looks like I'm not going to be using sleep mode most of the time anyway.

I am wondering if I'm trading one problem for another. If I don't use sleep mode is my laptop going to get worn out faster? I replaced my last laptop after 3 years. I'm wondering if I keep sleep mode disabled, will this laptop last as long?

ETA: I'm about to derail my own thread ... so what other problems can sleep and hibernaton cause on an XP or Vista network?

 

[Kaylee]

I didn't even know there was a problem, ...

Are you gloating? Well, I guess I can't blame you.

 

[elgarak]

Are you gloating? Well, I guess I can't blame you.

No gloating at all.

I just never put my MacBook in sleep or hibernate when I boot into Vista or run a virtual machine, so I never noticed any related problems. Though Vista has lots of other problems.

I voted for "Stay with XP/get a Mac/get Linux", and seriously mean this.

Vista is crap, and should have never left the beta stage, which should have been used as a learning stage for the next iteration of Windows.

 

[bignickel]

My new Vista desktop had an issue that whenever it went into Sleep mode, it locked the machine up but good. Eventually we figured out that that was what was causing my lockups. So, a bit of editing, and no more lockups.

Now, when I intentionally try to induce Sleep mode, it brings itself out of it after only 2 minutes. And I have it configured to not have the mouse bring it out of sleep mode. Can't win for losing.

 

[Zeno]

I haven't had a single problem with my Internet connection on Windows Vista. Linux on the other hand...

 

[Yalius]

Haven't seen this problem yet on laptops; we've currently got about 12 Vista notebooks out in the field. I have seen it on a desktop that was upgraded to Vista from XP; the ethernet adapter was unresponsive after coming out of standby. Reinstall of nvidia chipset drivers (nforce 430), including the ethernet driver, fixed that one.

 

[Kaylee]

I haven't had a single problem with my Internet connection on Windows Vista.

Haven't seen this problem yet on laptops; we've currently got about 12 Vista notebooks out in the field. I have seen it on a desktop that was upgraded to Vista from XP; the ethernet adapter was unresponsive after coming out of standby. Reinstall of nvidia chipset drivers (nforce 430), including the ethernet driver, fixed that one.

Interesting. Maybe it depends on how one connects to the internet? Perhaps this problem is limited to people who connect via DSL?

But in the interest of full disclosure, my:

modem: D-Link DSL-2320B (A ADSL2/2+ Ethernet/USB modem)
router: Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router with Speed Booster WRT54GS
network adapter: Intel PRO Wireless/3945ABG
O/S: Vista Home Premium 32 bit installation (came installed by manufacturer on machine.)

laptop: Toshiba A205 S4577
ISP: Verizon

Everything has the latest updates, drivers and firmware. Well I didn't check for my d-link modem, but I'm only using it as a bridge anyway. That couldn't be the problem, could it?

I'm not a network maven, but I would think the only variables that matter is the modem, router, network adapter and O/S -- but I mentioned my laptop model and ISP anyway.

In hindsight I realize I had the same problem of having to reboot after my computer entered sleep mode when I had a wired connection via my Westell 2200 ADSL modem (died after 4 years) and Marvell Yukon 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller.

So far my computer has not entered sleep mode today (I disabled that) and my connection has been strong all day. I think my ISP will only let me keep it for a max of 24 hours though. It will be interesting to see if I'll be able to reconnect to the internet after my ISP boots me off, or if I will have to reboot under those circumstances also.

Another variable may be that many people may think there is no problem because of their working style. Perhaps they just connect briefly to the internet, do what they want to do, and shut down their machine. They never enter sleep mode and they never find out that they would have been able to regain their internet connection in that scenario.

So ... have you or other people whose laptops you support had your machines enter sleep mode? Or did you disable it also, or because of your working style your laptops never go into sleep mode?

Linux on the other hand...

I'm surprised. I thought the saving grace of Linux was that this O/S hid nothing from its owner.

I really believe that if I could see ALL the settings or if I could see what all the programs output and inputs are in this particular networking scenario I would have a fighting chance of fixing it. But M$ doesn't let users see all. (Well, OK, maybe not me. I never got to the advanced stages of programming. But somebody could and this wouldn't be a hot topic on the web right now.)

 

[Kaylee]

Hey! I just took a look at the poll. No fair zeno, sharing what you did does not include being just lucky enough to not have any problems in the first place!

At least share what modems, routers and adapters you use.

 

[Damien Evans]

I have no problems at all with mine, and I'm on wireless DSL

 

[Reality Believer]

I have a Vista laptop and sleep all the time. It reconnects to the wireless with no problem each time.

 

[69dodge]

I don't have Vista, so this is just a guess. But what if you try disconnecting manually before going to sleep? Can you then reconnect when you wake up?

 

[Kaylee]

Very interesting RB and DE.

What wireless network cards, routers and modems do you use? RB, do you use DSL also?

I'm also curious how you have your network connection configured. Do you obtain your IP and DNS Server addresses automatically or do you have the addresses typed in?

Have you used more than one internet connection? That is -- have you used your laptop at various wifi hotspots, at work, school, other people’s homes, etc?

Follow-up question for Yalius -- since you say you’ve had no problems with Vista laptops in the field.

Do you happen to know if anyone in your company did any of the following?
* Unchecked TCPIPv6 properties for the laptop’s internet connection
* Disabled the IP Helper Services (as I understand it, it provides IPv6 connectivity over an IPv4 network.)
* Changed the windows registry to:
** Disenable the DHCP Broadcast Flag
** Turn off the “Receive Window Auto-Tuning Feature “

The last two features are new to Vista and apparently older routers can't handle them.

The reason I ask is because if your company has staff going out in the field constantly, they are bound to be encountering network hardware that is old and not compliant with Vista standards.

BTW, I don’t think any of the above are the reasons as to why I’m having trouble establishing an internet connection. As I said, I’m only having problems when my laptop comes out of sleep mode. It seems to me that the other reasons would cause problems to occur at other times as well, but my internet connection is strong and stable at all other times.

For example, after I turned off the laptops sleep mode feature, I’ve not lost the internet connection for over 12 hours so far. And I had left my laptop idling for at least 10 hours. I was able to use my internet browser immediately and had received my e-mail.

I don’t think I’ve found any problems posted the net that would occur because of sleep mode issues only, so I'm still stumped.

 

[Kaylee]

I don't have Vista, so this is just a guess. But what if you try disconnecting manually before going to sleep? Can you then reconnect when you wake up?

That is the first thing I tried 69dodge, I forgot to mention it.

It didn't work.

 

[Kaylee]

Very early this morning I had an odd problem. My connection had degraded to local only. Which I found surprising because when I entered ipconfig/all at the command line, all the parameters were the same as earlier in the day and didn’t indicate that anything was wrong. But while I could ping my gateway (198.162.1.1), I couldn’t ping any web sites.

When I went into my router’s browser, the status window showed that my IP address, subnet makes, Default gateway *, DNS servers were all zero. I still don’t understand why ipconfig/all on my laptop command line didn’t show the same parameters. Anybody have any ideas about that?

Anyway, the problem was quickly debugged to two little furry creatures. My cats! They get into everything and had learned how to shut my modem off.

Anyway, that was a good reminder to always check the LED lights first!




* This usually shows up as 10.32.113.1 instead of 192.168.1.1 on my router. I’m assuming that is my ISP’s gateway?

 

[Reality Believer]

Very interesting RB and DE.

What wireless network cards, routers and modems do you use? RB, do you use DSL also?

I'm also curious how you have your network connection configured. Do you obtain your IP and DNS Server addresses automatically or do you have the addresses typed in?

Have you used more than one internet connection? That is -- have you used your laptop at various wifi hotspots, at work, school, other people’s homes, etc?
.....

The computer is a Samsung Q1U Ultra portable. The network adapter is Atheros AR5006x. I use a Linksys wireless router as an access point that is tied to another router, that is tied to a Verizon FIOS modem. It is all automatic DNS.

I have used it at airport hot spots with no problem, although I believe they were accessed from a cold boot and not a sleep.

 

[GreNME]

Very early this morning I had an odd problem. My connection had degraded to local only. Which I found surprising because when I entered ipconfig/all at the command line, all the parameters were the same as earlier in the day and didn’t indicate that anything was wrong. But while I could ping my gateway (198.162.1.1), I couldn’t ping any web sites.

When I went into my router’s browser, the status window showed that my IP address, subnet makes, Default gateway *, DNS servers were all zero. I still don’t understand why ipconfig/all on my laptop command line didn’t show the same parameters. Anybody have any ideas about that?

Because your router is very likely not giving you the same settings it's getting from the ISP. What the router is giving you is a local group of settings that refer back to it (the router), which allows it (the router) to act as DHCP server (giving you a local IP address), DNS server (resolving names to addresses), and local gateway (the "doorway" to the intarwebs) for you. This is what routers do, and what they are for. They basically act as a local version of an ISP if you want to think of it in those terms, which is what allows it to have multiple computers attached to it to surf the web on a single outgoing internet connection.

Does that make sense?

Oh, and two things:

I really believe that if I could see ALL the settings or if I could see what all the programs output and inputs are in this particular networking scenario I would have a fighting chance of fixing it. But M$ doesn't let users see all. (Well, OK, maybe not me. I never got to the advanced stages of programming. But somebody could and this wouldn't be a hot topic on the web right now.)

1) It might be a hot topic because loads and loads of people are expecting Vista to be exactly the same as XP in every way, and this just isn't so. Controls and some of the underpinnings are in completely different places now, and all those previous "power users" from XP now have to figure out where the new stuff is and whether it's going to give them exactly the same results (it usually doesn't). It's not that tweaking is less possible with Vista, it's that XP tweaking techniques don't translate on a 1::1 basis to Vista.

2) Every time I see the use of the dollar sign, though especially in tech forums around the net, I am constantly reminded of the following:

_{(comic is copyright the guys over at Penny Arcade, the image here is hosted by me so as to not steal bandwidth from the PA guys)}