Forays into the world of wireless network connections

[GentleGiant]

Okay, so I posted this on a Danish wireless network newsgroup, but I actually think I'll be able to get a quicker (and perhaps even better) reply here (scary, isn't it ).

I just bought a W-Lan card for my laptop and, of course, wanted to test it out (i.e. install it) when I got home.
Now, this is my first real wireless networking experience, so bear with me
I installed the Configuration Utility program first, as prompted by the manual, restarted my computer and then inserted the W-Lan card. Windows detected it fine and, as per the instructions in the installation guide, I put in the folder on the accompanying CD where the drivers should be.
Seemed to be going ok... except, suddenly the copying speed of the driver files seemed to slow down. It finally finished copying everything and I clicked "Finish".
Okay, so now everything should be in order... one of those small pop-up windows even popped up and informed me that there was a wireless access point in the vicinity (not mine, since I haven't set up any yet). But Windows was now reaction veeerrryyy slooowlyyyy. I popped out the card and the speed was back to normal. Put in the card again and Windows was operating at snail speed again.
Anyone experienced this before?
Any suggestions what might be wrong?
I can't even start up the Configuration Utility program.

The W-Lan card is a PLANET WL-3560 802.11g wireless PCMCIA card
The laptop is Fujitsu Siemens Mobile AMD Athlon 2000+ 1.66 GHz with Windows XP Home Edition, SP2

 

[The_lurkeR]

Check the website of the W-Lan card maker to see if they have newer drivers. The ones on the CD it came with are likely old. Many wireless card drivers had issues with XP SP2 and released updated drivers.

 

[KenM]

When i set up my Mom's laptop for wireless, there was a switch on the side of the computer that had to be in the on postion for the wireles card to work. Not sure if your laptop or card has something like that, but might want to look into it.

 

[GentleGiant]

Check the website of the W-Lan card maker to see if they have newer drivers. The ones on the CD it came with are likely old. Many wireless card drivers had issues with XP SP2 and released updated drivers.

Don't know why I didn't think of that
Uninstalled the old driver and Configuration program and downloaded the newest version on the site... and it seems to be working fine now (still need to set up my other computer to see if I can connect them, though).

When i set up my Mom's laptop for wireless, there was a switch on the side of the computer that had to be in the on postion for the wireles card to work. Not sure if your laptop or card has somethign like that, but might want to look into it.

No such switch, so it seemed to only be a driver problem. Also, I've actually had another card in my laptop for single afternoon, one that apparently didn't need a special driver, when I was visiting a friend in the US and everything worked fine back then.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Old_Man_Fish]

The switches on the side (or top, or front) of the laptops are for built in wireless cards that you use to turn the wireless communications on/off. This is mostly to help out with power consumption if you are not using the wireless connection. (also a bit of security in there)

 

[XCorvis]

Most don't have a switch like that any more, but for models with a built-in card there is usually a keyboard shortcut. It's Fn-F2 on my Dell. I like to leave it off because it makes a lot of annoying pop-up messages about the wireless status.