Docking station wireless problem

[JWUK]

6735b laptop
PA286A basic docking station

We've recently been having problems with certain types of wireless router (Belkin and D-Link so far) working in conjunction with the above equipment.

With the laptop in an undocked state, the wireless connection works perfectly, however, when docked, the connection is dropped, although other wireless networks are still displayed. Removal from the docking station makes the correct connection re-establish straight away.

Our standard Linksys routers do not exhibit this behaviour and the connection works happily if docked or undocked. Trouble is, a lot of our users have their own routers and most of these seem to be Belkin. We're having to either unnecessarily replace user routers with our own, or piggy back ours off of theirs if they want to keep their one.

Anyone got any ideas? I don't think it's a signal issue because we have replicated the problem with a router about 30cm from the laptop/dock.

Thanks for looking
James

[Pieter 't Hart]

Hi James,

I can't really imagine it's vendor/router specific.

It may have to do with a "preferred network" where the Linksys wireless network is preferred over the docked network.
and the belkin/d-link are not.

also check ip-adress ranges issued by the DHCP servers on the wireless routers and of the docked network.
they may overlap?

[Das_Kritique]

I have a similar problem that the received wireless signal goes way down ONLY when docked, to the point that sometimes the connection drops. Any suggestions to fix would be welcome.