onboard wireless, access point help

[sidewild]

Hello there,

I am looking for some help with an issue I am experiencing. I have never had this problem in the past, but since a reinstall of vista it has started. I am not well versed in networking and would appreciate some direction to a well documented beginners guide so I don't have to keep pulling my hair out searching in forums and websites as I have over the past week.

I have an Asus p5k-e wifi mobo (realtek rtl8187 onboard usb wireless) based computer with vista 64. I use the software included to setup my comuter as an access point. I use it for my notebook and wii to connect to. However, since the reinstall (& upgrade to sp2), I have been having problems. If I freshly install the drivers and software, I can intally connect to the interent with my notebook (XP). Shortly thereafter, the connection is lost. This has occurred with two different notebooks, so I know that it isn't the notebook. When the connection is lost, the gateway and some other addresses(?) are lost on the notebook. I just can't seem to figure out what is wrong on the vista computer that is causing this. If I remove the software and drivers for the wireless and reinstall, it works for a short time. I tried uninstalling my firewall (comodo) and just use windows firewall, but I still got the same problem.

Are there any suggestions our there?

[cszeto]

If it is a software interaction issue, then your best bet is to contact the software publisher and/or the motherboard manufacturer. Only a handful of wireless NICs can actually function in "infrastructure" mode to act as "access points" and there is even less software available to run them as such, so there may not be much more information outside of the publisher and supplier.

If it is strictly a wireless performance issue, then you might try changing the wireless channel assignment and/or reorienting the antenna. You might also try troubleshooting with the wireless encryption disabled to simplify the efforts too.

This type of arrangement is "cute" for some, but most folks will go the route of a traditional wireless access point/combination router in order to not be tied to the hardware requirements (power) and in this case, possible software dependencies and/or interactions.