No internet but CAN ping

Hi,

I owned a Asus N50Vn-C1S with Vista Home Premium 32-bit since a month now and a week ago I've been having some weird wireless problem. Sometimes my wireless works properly when i turn on the laptop for an hour or so, after 45 minutes it start getting slower and so on till it stop working. The weird part is that i can make ping to any website so it's not a DNS issue. I have the latest Intel 5100 AGN wireless drivers and the Device Manager said that it works properly.

When this happens I've tryied to flush the DNS via Command Prompt, tryied to change ip address (i use static IP, DHCP disable), tryied to turn off and on the wireless card via switch and Fn+F2, tryied to disable and enable the wireless network connection, tryied to let Vista repair it via Diagnose and Repair connection, tryied to turn off and on my wireless router and modem and nothing works! The only thing that works is if i restart Vista (logging off doesn't fix it either, only restarting OS). Firewall Off and AVG antivirus disabled. Already tryied to change the auto tuning tcp/ip level of Vista.

I think is some Vista issues because i tryied to see if it was my wireless router by using my other laptop (with XP) and it worked just fine.

When this happens i am unable to use the browser or any other internet activity like MSN, Skype or even a Weather gadget with the exception that i CAN make a ping to any websites flawlessly!

So, I was wondering if anyone had this problem or could give me any ideas, maybe a misconfiguration (Not very good using Vista, I've only tryied what i know that works on XP).

Oh, it isnt range problem because I've tryied to be as closed to the wireless router as posible. I have a DI-624 D-Link Wireless Router and it works flawlessly with every other pc's and laptops of my house.

I'm out of ideas so any help is well appreciated.

Regards,
Luis Tejada

P.S. Diagnose and Repair connection saids that "Couldnt connecto to Microsoft (Microsoft's IP address) Restarting your router might solve the problem" or something like it. And MSN Troubleshoot saids "Error on Key Ports" don't know what that supposed to mean. Those are the only errors i get plus the Firefox and IE "Could not find server ***** " (any webpage, even GOOGLE! ). When the problem occurs I'm not downloading anything or any torrent client open, i'm just working around, chat, browsing, etc. Once again, only way to make it work is restarting Vista. Thank you for your time.

Hi Luis

Did this problem start right away, or did it take a few days?
If it developed after a few days have you considered using system restore?

Does the problem occur on both AC power and battery power?
If it only happens on battery - check your power saving settings for the wifi NIC.

It sounds like possibly either a memory leak or a buggy driver. This is supported by the fact that a reboot corrects the problem(for a little while), and that none of your comm programs work when the problem occurs. This suggests you have a problem either with drivers or your TCP/IP stack itself.

Can you connect without problems with Ethernet? If so, that sort of eliminates the TCP/IP stack as the source of the problem. You should then suspect your wifi drivers and/or related wireless control software.

If you can connect without issue via Ethernet, you might try either rolling back your wireless drivers to an earlier version, or (as long as you have your original drivers and wireless software) try deleting your wireless NIC in device manager. When you reboot your PC will detect the hardware and offer to reinstall the drivers. This method is a little extreme but is a way to correct corrupted driver problems.

I hope this helps resolve your problem.

John Kerr

Thx John,

Well i haven't try to use Ethernet when this happens but i will next time it does. It doesn't matter if its on AC or Battery power and they are the same drivers that came by default with the laptop (witch result to be the newest driver of the wireless card).

When i bought the laptop it all worked fine for the first weeks until lately, sometimes (not always) the problem appears. Already tried to do the restore point to weeks before the problem first appear but nothing happened. Right now i uninstall every plugins or non primordial application that consumes bandwith, i've been pushing around the resource monitor of vista to see what does it have in comun when the problem occurs.

I'm using the wireless device manager that came by default. In relation to your suggestion i don't think it's a drivers issue cuz it worked for a few weeks and i haven't change them. So, I'll wait till it happens again to test the Ethernet then i'll post wheter it worked or not.

What i don't understand it's that a reboot fix the problem and logging off doesn't.. Now that you mention it, i think it's a memory leak, cuz i don't believe logging off clears the memory or does it?

Thanks again for everything.
Luis Tejada

Well, problem occurred again so i tried to test with Ethernet.. but didn't work either...
Now I'm uninstalling MSN cuz that's a comun fact each time the problem occurs...

If that opens new ideas i'll willing to try them all... Thx again.

5100 AGN vs DI-624

Intel 5100 AGN troubles

I just purchased a Thinkpad from Lenovo with the Intel 5100 AGN wireless card in it. I kept losing my connection to the Internet. I searched on the web for a solution and tried a number of the suggestions, one of which solved one problem (access connections was turning off the wireless radio during inactivity to "save power"), but the problems persisted, even after I let Windows manage the connections.

The first symptom I noticed was that Windows could not find any networks. The next one I noticed was that the signal strength would drop very low. I even saw that when the laptop was 2 feet away from the router.

I finally came to the point where I was suspecting the Intel 5100 AGN itself. I have 2 other computers that use my wireless router and they have no problems, and people have come over with laptops and have not had any problems.

The router I have is D-Link Di-624 Xtreme-G. It seems to work just fine. I reconfigured the router to not use its Super-G mode. That appears to have eliminated the problem. It is still too early to be sure since the problem is intermittent, but it has stayed connected for a day now (whereas I used to lose the connection frequently in any given day).

I can't say for sure if the problem is with the 5100 AGN card, but I suspect it is. Given that I have never had this kind of problem with other computers (with varying cards) but only with this new one, the culprit seems to be the Intel 5100 AGN.


There are a lot of posts on the web about this very problem and no one seems to have found the answer.

I may have fixed the problem within my home by reconfiguring the router, but I can't do that for other routers (eg in a coffee shop). Other people have "solved" the problem by buying a new router (an expensive solution). The real fix has to be in the 5100 AGN itself, either a better driver (I have the latest version 12.1.0.14), or some card configuration (or else somehow replace it with a better wireless card).

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I spoke too soon. The problem is not fixed. I have even updated the router firmware (DI-624) which did not fix the problem