but when it does occur it effects all the laptops and lasts for periods of several hours at a time
But only the Emachines laptops - how many - and NONE of the other devices connected to the wifi - the other devices are in the same room ? anything else common about the laptops and NOT about the other devices, like powersupply, room, etc - have you installed any software on these machines that are not on the others - what other laptops do you have , that work OK?
do they work OK any where else ?
it could be a faulty batch - did you buy them all at the same time
can we see an xirrus screen shot from one of the machines
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Run Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector Download and installIf you cannot access the internet with this PC, then you will need to copy the program across to the faulty PC
http://www.xirrus.com/library/wifitools.phpDirect link to the program is here
http://www.xirrus.com/library/wifi_download_redirect.phpThen run and install the program
if you get an error - You need
NET Framework installed for the WiFi Inspector to function.
Run the program
post a screen shot of the program running - if there are a lot of networks showing can you click on "networks" top lefthand area - so we can see all the network information, and also post which network "Adapter Name" (1st column) is yours on the list
To post a screen shot of the active window, hold the Alt key and press the PrtScn key. Open the Windows PAINT application and Paste the screen shot. You can then use PAINT to trim to suit, and save it as a JPG format file.
To upload it to the forum, ohttp://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic14738.html
Note:
For a reliable (or robust as the Xirrus user guide says) wireless connection you need a signal of about -70 dBm or better.
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