Sudden loss of Networking

To whoever may be able to solve this:

One of my computers, which I use when travelling, is an Acer Netbook "Aspire One", which has never given me any trouble before. Its Wireless Network Adapter is an Atheros AR5007EG - and the machine is still (very well) running under XP SP3. I never had a problem with networking before, neither at home, where I have three machines running in network (ADSL connection), nor abroad, when I usually connect in WiFi without any problem. Sometimes, when the possibility is available, I make a LAN connection, because of its greater speed. In the far and between occasions a WiFi connection was broken (or whatever), I managed to reconnect without trouble.

Last week, I was in Hamburg, Germany and went on-line at the hotel where I was staying via a LAN connection. As it happened, there were about 12 XP updates available from Microsoft, and I downloaded/installed these. This did not go as smoothly as usual, and I had to restart the update about 4 times before being able to do the full operation. Otherwise, there did not seem anything untoward.

A few days later, I travelled to another German town and at the hotel where I was staying, only a WiFi connection was available. However, when I tried to switch on the WiFi connection (after having duly switched off the LAN connection prior to that), the procedure for looking up available networks, did not come up with anything at all - not even the hotel's router connection, which was quite nearby. To make sure, I tried to connect in a cafe next door, where WiFi was available. Same lack of result.

Of course, I looked up the Network Adapter in XP device management. But the dialog said that the device was working correctly. However, when trying to set up a new connection - either manually or via the XP wizard - at a certain I got an error/dialog message saying above the name of the adapter: "The following network connections are disconnected. Check the network cable or connect the network hardware again."

Naturally, following the "Ignore disconnected network hardware" did not produce any result.

[Attached you will find a screenshot of said dialog, but it being in Dutch, the texts above will provide the translation.]

All I know is that prior to the problem everything worked perfectly, and that the only major intervention before things went awry was the Windows Update mentioned above.

Finally, I had a laptop before, where the Wireless Network Adapter went down the drain at a certain point. I then bought a small adapter which I connected via USB.

It's quite possible that the same mishap happened now with the Netbook. But perhaps someone has encountered the same problem and could help me to test things so that I can make up what's the matter...

[To all intents, I also attach a Speccy file with all relevant specs of the Netbook, including a list of the latest updates.]

Best,

Haku

 

uninstall the updates from microsoft, you can see all the updates when you go to the Microsoft update page and review your update history.

there were about 7 or 9 updates for patch Tuesday, uninstall all and then check your wifi

if it works properly, install one update manually at a time from Microsoft Download center:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows.aspx

use the search box for each kb number, download one at a time, install, reboot, and check your wifi, till you come to the update that was causing problems, then let me know what the update was so I can research it.