T410 with Centrino 6200-N dropping wireless regularly

Hi everyone,

I bought a Lenovo T410 a few months ago, and I just recently started to have problems where the wireless would drop about every 6-7 minutes and then would reconnect in a few seconds.

The strange thing is that this never occurred (or at least I never noticed it) until I moved onto my college campus. However, I am sure that the network here is not the problem because (1) no one else experiences it and (2) I have used the internet with a USB wireless adapter with no problems at all.

I have tried the following with no success:
1. Updating to latest Intel driver
2. Uninstalling and reinstalling latest driver
3. Uninstalling and installing the second to latest driver
4. In all above cases, setting the power options via control panel to always have wireless adapter at maximum performance
5. In all above cases, going into devmgmt and unchecking the box that says 'may turn off this device when not in use' and also setting roaming aggressiveness to the lowest number

Running Windows 7 Ultimate, with Centrino 6200-N.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Hello, welcome to the forums! A few questions:

1.- Are you using only Windows' network connection utility, or are you also using the ThinkVantage Access Connections program (and/or Intel's bundled software)?

2.- Do you also happen to have an ethernet cable plugged into the computer?

3.- Is your BIOS up to date?

 

What's the context for this question? Is there an issue with running them both at the same time?

 

I've been using Window's network connection utility. I've never used ThinkVantage Access Connections.

Nope. Why do you ask?

As far as I know, yes. I just reran ThinkVantage System Update, and it did not mention any new BIOS updates. I have updated my BIOS since receiving my computer, through ThinkVantage System Update.



I am currently rerunning ThinkVantage System Update, and it is updating my wireless driver for me (since I manually installed an older driver). Let's see if anything good happens!

 

There usually shouldn't be any issue with that, but there could have been a problem with the assigned priorities for the Gigabit wired connection and the Intel WiFi connection (you can check the priorities using the "netstat -rn" command in the console).

Also, another question: typically, when the WiFi does work, how many bars of connection strength do you get? When the connection drops, what happens - it just disconnects from the network? If so, does the network still appear if you manually press the refresh button for the network list?

 

I usually get all 5 bars of signal strength. About once every 6-7 minutes, the connection drops but then automatically reconnects within a few seconds. It's actually not really that noticeable during regular internet usage. But when I'm using ssh, or doing a skype call, the brief internet disconnect results in the connection being broken.

 

Bump... I've tried installing the driver posted on the Lenovo support website, as well as the latest Intel driver that just came out 2 weeks ago. Now my wireless card does connect faster to the network than it did before (it used to take almost half a minute sometimes, as opposed to almost instantly now) but still disconnects about every 3 minutes or so.

Just to clarify what I mean when I say 'disconnect', I don't mean that the connection is dropped entirely. Usually I get that yellow triangle w/ the exclamation mark on the wireless icon, and it'll say that it is 'identifying' the network, and does not have internet access yet.

Do you think this could be an issue with my wireless card, and I should get a replacement from lenovo?

 

This made our workstation team at my company go bonkers when they were doing a pilot that started in September of Windows 7 laptops running Intel 5300 cards in HP laptops with Cisco APs (We have like.. 200,000/100,000 desktops/laptops companywide--they all gotta be replaced W7 systems by 2013!).

You may experience connectivity issues or performance issues when you connect a mobile PC that is running Windows Vista or Windows 7 to a wireless access point
Try this. Turns out I don't have this problem at home with my personal equipment because my AP supports power save (IEEE 802.11e I think?)

 

Hi guys!

So I stumbled upon this post and I have the same issue with my Lenovo T410. I've tried Microsoft's solution and I've had no luck. Has anyone else had this issue and resolved it?

Thanks!

 

patnyc,
I ended up just asking for a new wireless chip from lenovo. Make sure you've tried everything that I've tried though (mainly (4) and (5) in the OP); they'll ask you to try everything first before they send you a replacement (assuming your warranty is still in effect).

 

I would also check the firmware in your Wifi router is the latest. This can make a difference too.