T42 wireless connection problems - wifi will not connect [ Edited ]

[majabl]

My mother recently bought a reconditioned T42 computer, and we are unable to make a connection to her router via wifi.  The computer will connect just fine via an ethernet cable.

There are two other ThinkPads in the house (T40 and T61), both of which connect to the router via wifi, and one further computer that can also connect just fine.  This suggests that it is not the router that is causing a problem.

I took the T42 to my house and attempted a wireless connection to my router.  There was the same problem there at first, but then I ran the command 'netsh interface ip reset resetlog.txt' as suggested at http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/index.cfm?action=showthread&threadid=225458&forumid=18 and after that it worked just fine.

Passwords and SSIDs have been double- and triple-checked.  I have tried unencrypting the router and setting it to WPA and WPA2 (though it really needs to be set to WEP as there is a Nintendo DS in the house).  As far as I can see, the T40, T42, and T61 PCs all have exactly the same settings as far as wifi goes.  I really can't work out why the wireless connection will not work here for the T42!

After trying to connect, the error message given is:

'Unable to connect to preferred wireless network

'Windows could not connect to any of your preferred wireless networks.  Windows will keep trying to connect.  To see a list of all networks, including others you can connect to, click this message'.

The T42 is able to SEE all of the networks in the neighbourhood; it just can't connect to any of them.  If I double-click the Wireless Network Connection icon in the system tray (the PC is running XP) then I can see the half a dozen wifi networks in the area, but if any of them are double clicked on then the popup just keeps 'Waiting for the connection' but never actually gets there.

Please help!

Matthew

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

have you tried to reinstall the wireless driver? or updating the driver?

Also are you using the XP wireless connection or the Access connection?

If everything fails, try to reinstall windows from the recovery partition (provided it is still there), press the Acess IBM on the keyboard next to the volume control, during the startup, then select recover to factory condition.

This will wipe the hdd and reinstall the OS from scratch.

[majabl]

Hi.  Thanks for your speedy reply!

The wireless driver is the most current one from the Lenovo website (9.0.4.39 for the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection).  I have tried reinstalling it, but there doesn't seem to have been any change.

I am using the XP Wireless Connection.  I did try Access Connections but that did not work either, so I uninstalled it and then reinstalled the wireless driver noted above.

Unfortunately this laptop was provided without the recovery partition in place.

[ajkula66 Guru]

A couple of things here...

a) What's the full 7-character model number of that T42, should be something like 237?-???

b) What AV software are you running?

Good luck and let us know.

[majabl]

Hi, ajkula66, and thanks for your response!

a) It's 2373-7WG.

b) AV-wise it's MS Security Essentials.  But I think that even before that was installed, when there was no AV software, the problem was the same.