Windows 7 Limited access connection

[new2wireless]

Hi,

I have 2 pc's on a wireless network which seem to connect fine (most of the time) when they start up, but if they sleep/hibernate and sometimes starting up and then try to connect to my network I get limited access - no network connection and when I do the windows 7 troubleshooter It always asks me to reset the wireless device which is I think my router. So I unplug the router, wait 10s and plug it back in and the connection works. How do I fix this problem?

I dont want to have to unplug the router everyday.

any help would be appreciated.

 

[Trouble]

Hi,

I have 2 pc's on a wireless network which seem to connect fine (most of the time) when they start up, but if they sleep/hibernate and sometimes starting up and then try to connect to my network I get limited access - no network connection and when I do the windows 7 troubleshooter It always asks me to reset the wireless device which is I think my router. So I unplug the router, wait 10s and plug it back in and the connection works. How do I fix this problem?

I dont want to have to unplug the router everyday.

any help would be appreciated.

Perhaps if you could share with us, the manufacturer, model name and number as well as the version number or your particular wireless router, we may be able to help find a potential solution. It may be the case that other members here have similar equipment and have had similar problems and they may have specific knowledge that might be able to help.
Generally speaking it is always a good idea to have the latest and greatest drivers for your wireless network cards as well as the latest firmware updates for your wireless router.
There are often times, settings within device manager under the properties of your network card under the power management tab that you can turn off that will prevent the OS from turning off your network adapter to conserve power. As well general power options in the control panel under your particular plan settings that may help overcome this issue.
Generally speaking, networking is all about high availability and up time of network resources and when network nodes are polling for the availability of these resources, various power saving settings can result in abhorrent behavior.
Ulltimately depending on your particular hardware and its' specific drivers, you may have to choose between networking and power saving.

 

[new2wireless]

The router I am using is a D-link WBR2310.
Both pc's have windows 7 ultimate on them. As far as driver i don't know if they've been updated or not. and as I mentioned before I don't know if its because of the pc's hibernating that this happens because it also occurs when I power on a pc.

 

[Agent Data]

your problem usually is an indicator that the network cards' driver can't handle sleep-modes correctly. make sure you install the latest driver...

 

[Celestra]

Detailed Analysis Available

(Before sleep, run following commands in CMD Window IPCONFIG/ALL) Please see post for instructions on running analysis. We can spot exactly what's causing the problem.....

Need to reboot to get internet access after resuming from sleep mode

 

[Trouble]

As I indicated in my original post it always a good idea to have the latest and greatest software drivers to support your particular hardware. According to this http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/Details.aspx?type=Hardware&p=D-Link%20WBR-2310%20RangeBooster%20G%20Wireless%20Router&v=D-Link&uid=WBR-2310&pf=3&pi=1&c=Networking&sc=Wireless%20Routers&os=32-bit
your router appears to be compatible with both 32 and 64 bit versions of windows 7 so that would seem to indicate that the problem may very well be with the network adapters. So if you could please list the wireless adapter(s) manufacturer, model name and number and REV. number then we might be able to help more.
You haven't provided any information on the two computers that you are having problems with. Are they new? Did they come with Win7 preinstalled? Did you upgrade from an earlier version of Windows? If so did you do an actual upgrade or a clean install? How long have you had this problem? Has it always been a problem or is a recent development? Windows 7 is extremely finicky about hardware and drivers and seems to perform well with newer hardware but can be problematic with some legacy equipment.

 

[new2wireless]

The network adapter on my pc is a wda-2320 from dlink network adapter. My PC is about 3 years old I did a fresh install of windows 7 properly (with XP installed first) its activated properly I went through that issue as well.

I used to be connected to the router via cable and the other pc was wireless and never had this sort of problem. However I made them both wireless because I could not figure out how to setup a network (or get the homegroup to work) when I was connect via wire and the other connected wirelessly.

My pc is 64bit W7U and the other has 32bit W7U

 

[new2wireless]

and the drivers are both up to date.

 

[new2wireless]

update: Its not only when I log off and log back on. I left the pc idle for about an hour or 2 today and I come back and that dam triangle is up again with limited access. I installed the driver from dlink as well.

 

[Trouble]

update: Its not only when I log off and log back on. I left the pc idle for about an hour or 2 today and I come back and that dam triangle is up again with limited access. I installed the driver from dlink as well.

As Celestra indicated in an earlier post try using the ipconfig /all from a command prompt to attempt to see and understand what exactly is happening when the problem occurs. Compare the results of the command when the connection is working to the results of the command when the connection fails, see whats missing or changing.
Use the ping command under both conditions ping the inside edge of your router and other network nodes inside your network. Try pinging outside addresses like 64.233.169.99 as well as FQDNs, like www.google.com
Limited connectivity can be a result of an issue with the default gateway information you are getting from your DHCP server or perhaps the router is having itermittent issues with forwarding DNS queries.
For the purposes of diagnosing the issue further you may try to manually assign static IPv4 information values to your wireless card as well as temporarily disabling IPv6. If you are using homegroups then you will need IPv6 for it to work properly but for the time being just disable it to see if your connectivity issues resolve.
If you have other network adapters installed on either or both computers, just disable the one(s) you are not using in device manager.
You may also need to take a look at any third party software applications that are running in the background.
Some applications have been known to cause similar problems and it could be anything from
Media Streaming software, to a third party Internet Security Suite, to a product called mdnsresponder which can be running in the background if you have the Bonjour Service running sometime a product of installing Itunes, or some of the Adobe Products, like their Creative Suites, CS3 or CS4, etc.

 

[new2wireless]

i think it may be because of the wireless network settings. i had the security set to best (wpa2). i will try it at just wpa like i did in the past. i'll keep you guys updated

 

[Trouble]

i think it may be because of the wireless network settings. i had the security set to best (wpa2). i will try it at just wpa like i did in the past. i'll keep you guys updated

Yes, please post back and let us know. Although I would think that if WPA_2 is support on both ends by both devices that it wouldn't cause an issue. But still we seem to learn something new everyday in these forums and I would certainly like to hear back from you if changing the security encryption level seems to correct your problem. Thanks for keeping us updated.

 

[new2wireless]

the security changes did not help. I am starting to believe that it is my wireless router. it seems to shutdown (no network access now). I figured out that while windows was saying limited acess it just meant that the network was gone and it was proably trying to reconnect. when it was saying limited access i tried connecting to router uncessfully.

Another reason why I believe it is my router is because it has been happening more frequently when I am downloading alot at high speed. while downloading a cd I would get to over 700kb/s and while I and the other PC were on the internet we both would lose connection. I repeated the high volume/speed download 4 times now and everytime the connection is lost. i have been online now for 45min without downloading anything and it hasn't disconnected yet.

Another pointer about high speed/volume data transfer. Everytime I would try remote desktop it would lose network connection.

 

[Trouble]

It could very well be, that the wireless radio on the router is causing the problem, have you gone to Dlink's site to see if they have a firmware update for your particular model? It's possible that a firmware update may breathe some new life into it or it may not, but I would certainly give it a shot as the only other option of course would be to swap it out with another router. Do you have an option to beg or borrow another device just to help you troubleshoot the issue further?

 

[new2wireless]

what would firmware do to the device? I odn't know what the purpose of firmware is? i can't burrow a router this week but if it comesdown to that I will borrow one this weekend

 

[Trouble]

what would firmware do to the device? I odn't know what the purpose of firmware is? i can't burrow a router this week but if it comesdown to that I will borrow one this weekend

Simply put firmware is typically a file containing a bunch of code which is stored in an area of non-volatile memory within the device, that provides information regarding what all the subcomponents are and how they go about working together sort of like the BIOS information stored on the CMOS chip on your motherboard. Mostly these are provided to fix known bugs or enhance some features making the device more robust. I was just thinking that it might help in the event that there may be some minor corruption as a result of an electrical anomaly. It's important to understand that a bad firmware upgrade can brick your router, just like a bad BIOS flash can toast your motherboard. So you want to make sure to read all the relevant directions regarding such an update.

 

[new2wireless]

did the firmware upgrade with no success. tried the heavy load of downloading and lost network connection once again. Is there some feature on the router that may enable / disable shutdown if heavy downloading occurs? if not I think the router is done.

 

[Trouble]

did the firmware upgrade with no success. tried the heavy load of downloading and lost network connection once again. Is there some feature on the router that may enable / disable shutdown if heavy downloading occurs? if not I think the router is done.

Nothing that I'm aware of, however that particular router I believe is both B and G capable. You may try experimenting with those settings, by switching from B/G to B only or if both your cards support G, then maybe try G only and see if that produces any better results.

 

[new2wireless]

I have also been using tkip security i just read tha this slows down router speed due to the amount encryption required. maybe this is what is clipping the router off. I used to have wpa aes at my old place and it never gave me problems I will go back to that and see the result.

 

[Trouble]

I have also been using tkip security i just read tha this slows down router speed due to the amount encryption required. maybe this is what is clipping the router off. I used to have wpa aes at my old place and it never gave me problems I will go back to that and see the result.

Try the B and G switch that I recommended above and for testing purposes, just run the router open, without security. Since you seem to be able to produce the problem pretty fast, I don't suspect you'll be in any immediate jeopardy with just a brief test. Then of course reapply your security.