T400 - 5300 dropping connection

Just got my T400. Anyhow, I keep losing internet connection. It will be at 99% connection and then go to nothing and then come back on a few seconds later.

I have read numerous posts about problems ppl have. Numerous suggestions are made.

I have turned off "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power."

There were some suggestions about "location switching" while I found a window about location switching in access connections, I dont see anything in there about automatic location switching.

It seems to me there are numerous pieces of software that are managing the 5300. There are two icons in the task bar that have to do with the connection and then there is another icon on the upper right of the screen associated with access connections. I am going to speculate that this may be part of the problem....and I will also assume that vista is also trying to manage the connection?

Can someone (one of you experts) write some step by step instructions to set up the computer to manage the connection more efficiently? Or are there siome out there that you can direct me to?


BTW, I know router is stable as I have two other computers that can keep a solid Br is T400 with 5300 running Vista Biz 64

Thanks.

 

Some more info.

I removed Thinkvantage Access Connections (uninstalled). I dont think there was any change in performance.

I changed the details of roaming agressiveness from low to medium high. I dont think there was any change in performance.

I changed the properties of the 5300 from use 802.11 a/b/g/ to 802.1 b/g. I dont think there was any change in performance.

I look at the wireless network connection status window and it shows: IPv4 connectivity as Local and IPv6 Connectivity as Limited.

This is silly. Brand new PC and I cant seem to get a stable wireless connection. I have a little computer knowledge, but what do ppl with no idea do?

 

are there a lot of wireless networks nearby? if so, you might want to set roaming aggressiveness as low as possible... roaming is not good if you want to stay connected to the same network.

 

Same thing happened to my x200. Go to power option, go to settings and uncheck 'disable wireless radio' and restart windows.

 

There are 3 wireless networks nearby (including mine). I dont seem to be drifting to those other ones. I tried it on the lowest aggresiveness with no help.

 

I can't seem to find this particular setting. I am going to keep looking. I can't remember for sure now, since I have done so many different things in the last 8 hours, but I thought I had unchecked something about turning off the wireless????

 

OK, I think I may have SOLVED the problem of my computer dropping connections. I have yet to see this solution on this board (after too many hours of searches), so others may want to try this as well.

Go to Control Panel, Power Options. Then for each Plan Setting select Change Plan Setting, then Change advanced settings, Wireless Adapter Settings, Power Saving Mode and change On Battery and Plugged in to "Maximum Performance."


So some of you that have dropped connections, please try this and let us know if it helps.

 

do a thinkvantage system update, includes updates to wifi driver and access connections. fixed my issue with dropping the connection.

 

ANother thing I did was I uninstalled the driver for the 5300. I then downloaded the driver from intel (it was the same driver per the date and version #). But that seems to have made a big difference as well.

 

i'm with superduty. downloading the newest intel drivers is a must for these new cards. my card used to drop my connection once in awhile. i installed the newest driver and it's more stable now.

 

FWIW, the date and version number on the driver installed on my computer was the same as the newest driver from intel....but I swear the driver straight from the intel site made a difference. I reinstalled access connections as well to see if it would cause a problem again...and it is not. I think all this effort to conserve power lands up causing other issues. There are at least 3 different places where you have to change settings with regards to power and the 5300.


FWIW, the brand new T400 still didnt have as good of connection as my 3 year old Toshiba today. I was streaming the NY Marathon on both computers (not far from one another) and the Toshiba dropped the stream far less than the T400. I know it isnt a scientific test, but it seemed practical.

Anyone know of a good www site that streams live video, where a person could check the consistency and reliability of their home wireless network.

Thanks

 

hulu... that seemed to drop about 2-3 times on my pc

 

This is a known problem. The Lenovo drivers for the 5300 are bad.

Use the driver from the Intel site and the problem goes away.

There have been multiple thread about this.

 

The driver that came with the computer is thesame version as the most recent driver on theintel site. Do you think lenovo weaks the intel driver, yet calls it by the same version and shows the same issue date?

Regardless I did uinstall the the drive3r that came wtih the computer (and deleted it). I then installed the driver from the intel site.

 

Yes, Lenovo tweaks the driver/does something.

All I can tell you is using Lenovo packaged driver = bad, Intel site one = good.