Bizarre wireless networking problem

[MyndFyre]

I've tried Googling and MS-support-KB-searching with nothing good coming back.

My laptop, which was recently not rebooted for 40 days straight (lots of hibernation time I'm sure) refuses to receive packets.

I'm running Windows XP SP1a.  It will connect to my WEP-enabled wireless network and receive its DHCP configuration perfectly fine.  But it normally exchanges NetBIOS configuration, and it's not.  In fact, it's not receiving any packets; if you look at the "Summary" tab of the network connection, the "Sent" packets will slowly climb, but "Received" stays constant at 0 -- with the exception that, if I turn on Ethereal in promiscuous mode, it will receive slowly, but still not parse anything that comes in.  For example, I can capture a DNS lookup for Google, and see that it comes back in, but the browser doesn't do anything.

I'm going to try installing a clean copy of XP side-by-side with it, and if it works, I'll go from there, but if anybody has any suggestions, I'm happy to hear them.

[update] It looks like it's the hardware, because the fresh install with the driver doesn't work either, with the same problem. 

[dxoigmn]

Usually there is a way to disable the wireless on the motherboard via some special key command (Fn + F2 on my Dell).  Or there may be a swich on the side of the computer (My girlfriend's Toshiba has this).  Should see if that is the problem.

[tA-Kane]

My dad's toshiba has a similar problem, it boots up and for about 10 minutes, the wireless refuses to work (switch is on, network connection is enabled). It's very weird, IMO.


Edit: on, not one  :\

[MyndFyre]

Actually....  This is even more retarded.

It works for non-WEP wireless networks.

[tA-Kane]

Now that you mention it, I do remember that we had disabled our WEP and then the problem seemed to have disappeared.

Maybe it's a problem with XP?

[MyndFyre]

Now that you mention it, I do remember that we had disabled our WEP and then the problem seemed to have disappeared.

Maybe it's a problem with XP?

Heh, I was wondering if perhaps it is a way for M$ to "encourage" people to up to XPSP2.  :-P