WiFi connection keeps disconnecting

I used to have a hell of a time with my WiFi wireless connection. I had a Linksys PCMCIA wireless adapter (802.11b) and a Linksys wireless router (802.11b). I installed the wireless card in my laptop, followed the setup instructions and was able to connect to the wireless router for just short periods of time. My connection would continously be reset or disconnected, forcing me to reconnect about every 5 mintues. This of course, drove me crazy...

[Solution]

Check the properties of your wireless adapter - specifically the connection settings that allow you to define a wireless network. [Note: I was on WinXP SP1 at the time, but this should be relevant for SP2 as well] There is a tab called authentication and you need to disable IEEE 802.1x authentication [I disabled all three options on this tab] [Note: this is not the same tab that has your WEP settings. I would suggest starting with NO security, test the connection and then move to some security like WPA] .

The next thing I found made a HUGE difference was to deny Windows the management of the wireless device [It's a check box called 'Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings' - turn this off ]. I found that the Linksys utility did a much better job at this then windows - which stayed true when I got a new Dell Precision laptop and used the Dell utility to control my wireless settings as well.