Wrestling with MS Wireless Networking

Sometimes its the simple things. I decided to setup my kids with cable internet access in their rooms. I already had a server and 2 laptops tied to my cable modem with a Barricade router.

Wiring was out so I bought the MS wireless base station, an wireless card for my daughter's pc, wireless USB adapter for my son's amd a wireless notebook adapter for my older laptop. Not too shabby for $300.

I get home, hook the base station into my router and within 30 minutes my daughter and son had access. Wow! So I get my laptop, pop the adapter into the PCMCIA slot and nothing. Move closer to the base station, nothing. After an hour I call support (India) and they have me return the adapter to the store. I get home, still nothing.

I call support (India and Canda together) back and they tried for 3 hours over the phone, switching slots, etc. I put the old network card in and it works. My sons USB adapter works. Everything but the PCMCIA adapter.

The tech arranges an appointment with the XP R&D (Nova Scotia) team for last night at 7pm. He calls on time and walks through a few items and nothing. After about 45 minutes he tells me to put my old network card in, get on Dell's site and download a BIOS update for my CP/ir Lattitude. I had A2, they were up to A14. I had to dig up a floppy to install from because my BIOS was so old it couldn't be done from Windows 2K. BINGO!

The MS support people were excellent. I think the broadband team should have picked up the bios issue but at least they resolved it. And the R&D tech fired an email off to the broadband team to let them know how it was resolved so they are on the stick. By the way, did you notice the globe trotting for support? All in all I am very satisfied.

So if this happens to anyone, check for an updated BIOS. Oh, and by the way, I don't need the Barricade router anymore. The base station has 4 wired ports so my other machines go through it also.

Regards,

Paul Speranza