Many versions of windows = network fail?

[[AK]Clay]

Make sure both computers are either using DHCP or have unique IP addresses. Identical names on a network can also cause some problems.

Like Swae, I too am still having issues here - and this is one of the strangest networking issues I've run into. It's also very repeatable, so at least that makes things easier to test.

The wireless box is 100% reliable. But when I turn on the wired box, in about 30 seconds the wireless loses connection to the router. At first I thought maybe it was electrical noise from the wired box. So I unplugged the wired box from the network and turned it on. Problem went away. So there's some sort of network incompatability that's causing the wired box to bump the wireless box. I've never seen this before. The thing is, it's only that one wireless box that fails. All the other wireless machines work fine.

So I checked DHCP. I set the router to assign a static IP address to each machine now, based on MAC address, to see if maybe it was assigning the same number or something. No change in reliability. (though I do like the tidy aspect of having assigned LAN IP address for each machine now).

I can tell the wireless box to disconnect from my wireless router. And then reconnect. I get great connection again - for about 30 seconds. Then, out. It won't even connect to the wireless router (192.168.1.1), BUT it see's the wired box on Homegroup. That's weird. So I disconnected it from Homegroup. But that didn't help.

Any thoughts on this? It almost smells like a Win 7 bug of some kind.

Edit - took the wired box off of Homegroup, and now it's looking like the wireless is working again. Weird.

[[AK]Nuts]

Very odd. Another idea (if you still want to play with it) is to try another router. If it works, keep it. If not, return it.

[[AK]Clay]

Very odd. Another idea (if you still want to play with it) is to try another router. If it works, keep it. If not, return it.

Dang, I thought I had fixed it, but now i'm still having big reliability issues with the wireless desktop. The part that is confusing is all the other wireless devices are working just fine. The Netbook is wireless B, G, N, and so too is the router. So too is the desktop. I suspect it's a setting issue or a driver issue, but for the life of me can't figure out what it is. I'm thinking of just doing a wipe and restore for starters. Failing that, I may try another network card.

[[AK]Beaker]

At least you didn't say you need a new wife since the problem stems from her computer.

[[AK]Ozzred]

Clay, just curious if you have tried two things.
1) a hard reset of the router
2) if that doesn't work, possibly updating the router firmware.
3) Does the same thing happen if both boxes are plugged in via wire? I know that won't necessarily solve the problem, but may help in identifying the source of the issue.