Connectivity Problems - General Failure error message + Random ping spikes

Question

So I bought and installed a new wireless card (A Netgear WPN311, if it matters). It's giving me the same problem as a previous wireless card I tried (a DLink WDA-1320). That is to say that it will randomly drop me from the network for no apparent reason, and when I continuously run a ping through the command prompt it will randomly return 'General Failure' between 10-25% of the time.

My Playstation and sister's laptop connect to the network just fine, and I've observed no problems with connectivity on either platform.

I did google the problem and poke around various forums, giving me a laundry list of things to try to get it working smoothly. This includes

-Resetting/Repairing my Winsock

-Disabling my wired connection

-Disabling all firewalls on my machine

-Updated to the latest drivers for both my device and my networking controller

-Disabled/Reenabled Auto Tuning

-Physically installed the device in another PCI slot

I've probably tried a few more things, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

I didn't have this problem with my old wireless card (it gave me a seperate set of problems instead, though that's just cause the card itself was borked.)

Here's an example of what I mean, though getting this many general failure errors in such a short space of time is a bit of an anomoly...

C:\Users\Kyle>ping google.ca -t

Pinging google.ca [74.125.91.104] with 32 bytes of data:

General failure.

Reply from 74.125.91.104: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=50

General failure.

Reply from 74.125.91.104: bytes=32 time=147ms TTL=50

General failure.

Reply from 74.125.91.104: bytes=32 time=49ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 74.125.91.104:

    Packets: Sent = 6, Received = 3, Lost = 3 (50% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

    Minimum = 49ms, Maximum = 147ms, Average = 97ms

Control-C

^C

As well as my IP config;

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Kyle-PC

   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :

   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast

   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : gateway.2wire.net

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection 3:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : gateway.2wire.net

   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NETGEAR WPN311 RangeMax(TM) Wireless PCI

Adapter #2

   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-18-4D-71-45-84

   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::41da:e7cd:12e2:c3af%20(Preferred)

   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.19(Preferred)

   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : November-05-09 11:38:06 AM

   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : November-08-09 11:40:30 AM

   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 436213837

   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-0E-6E-12-A6-00-04-4B-03-16-8F

   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet

   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-04-4B-03-16-8F

   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 6:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface

   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-00-54-55-4E-01

   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 14:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : gateway.2wire.net

   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : isatap.gateway.2wire.net

   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0

   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 17:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : isatap.{2CFEB41E-4F47-4121-B80D-0DB156C0EF97}

   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0

   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

If you need anymore information, lemme know, thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Nevermind... I started getting those errors again today. For no apparent reason! I was playing World of Warcraft (which I've done several times over the past week or so!) and they spontaneously started again. They seem to come in fits now, though. I've gotten nothing for the past five minutes or so. But a couple hours ago it was so bad I couldn't even browse the internet!

Answer 2

Well, after doing a fresh and clean install of Vista, it appears to be working now... (Knock on wood). Just seems a bit of an extreme solution to what should be a pretty minor problem. Now to reinstall and download all my apps...

I couldn't do the repair install, it kept giving me all kinds of weird errors that I couldn't resolve with the help files. Ah, well, I was a bit overdue on a fresh install. Let me do some housekeeping for when I upgrade to Seven.

Answer 3

Repair Vista and check as you have tried everything else:

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88236-repair-install-vista.html

Hope this Helps!!!!