Possible fix for slow wireless LAN startup in Vista

Ever had this problem? Your laptop is using an Intel WLAN card (mine is a 3945ABG/BG). When you boot up Vista, it takes quite a long time (maybe 2 minutes or so) before Vista detects any wireless networks and connects to them. Sometimes Vista doesnt even connect unless you manually turn on/off the wireless switch.

I had these problems very often, even after numerous clean installs. Usually the problem starts happening after you add/update/remove device drivers or add/remove some new software.

This is what I did to fix it:

1. Download and install the latest drivers (currently v11.5.0.1) from Intel for Vista from http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...dows Vista* Business, 32-bit version&lang=eng
or download the newer release v11.5.0.36 from http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-67256

2. After installing the new driver, go to the wireless adapter's properties in device manager and change the "Ad-Hoc Channel 802.11b/g" to 1 (default is 11). This seems to fix the problem of the wireless lan not finding any networks.

Apologies if this is seen as a "double post", but I thought the fix for this extremely irritating problem could do with its on thread. I've been happily using my Vaio SZ with reliable wireless now for the past few weeks.