A customer would like to connect her asus f2hf laptop to a friends wireless network.

Her friend is a past customer: I installed a wireless D-link router, and networked a few PCs (some wireless) for her.

Well, I try, but the laptop won’t connect.

I’m told that the laptop had been upgraded from vista to XP, by another tech, and that the wireless network worked just fine with two other wireless routers.

After a while, I decide to take it back to the office at take a good look. I uninstall Norton (given all my past grief with that software). Scan for nasties (none found), and it easily connects to my 3 year old tp-link wireless router. I also do some tuning and upgrade RAM from 512Mb to 2GB.

I give it back, and ask that she tries it at her friends again.

Nope, It still wont work on the dlink wireless network… Sometimes XP shows that there are no wireless networks in range… other times, it shows the correct wireless network SSID with an excellent signal strength of 5/5. But it just tries to connect, and then quietly stops trying.

I try plugging in a USB wireless adapter, install the drivers, and the laptop can now connect to the wireless network.

I’m tempted to upgrade the firmware on the dlink wireless router, but I don’t want to risk wrecking a router thats otherwise working flawlessly.

But customer is happy to use her friends usb adapter, as she only needs it occasionally.

What still puzzles me is: is it a fault with the dlink router, or a fault with the laptop builtin-wireless?

I’m leaning towards a faulty laptop wireless… or even a fault with the XP drivers (given that the laptop was a originally a vista machine).