I had setup a wireless network for a customer (3 laptops and a HP media center PC), but a few days later, I found out that the network had stopped working. I went back to do some other work (setup network printing, and install antivir and anti spyware), so I also looked at this wireless problem.

I started by trying the laptops, but they couldn’t see the WAP. I gave the netgear wireless router/modem a power cycle, and it all seemed to be right. but during the next 2 hours, the network would drop out, then reconnect after a few minutes. Once connected, the signal strength would always be excellent.

After setting up the laptops, I got to the HP media center PC. I noticed that it had a built-in wireless adapter, and a blue light at the front indicated that it was functional. But the XP wireless software would just say that no wireless networks were detected. Since this PC was wired directly to the router, I decided to disable the wireless card from device manager.

After that, all the wireless dropout stopped happening!

I’ve never seen a wireless card fail, and disrupt a wireless network, but I suppose anything is possible.