Challenges with AR5005g card under WinXP home

Now, maybe this is just Windows itself in all its glory, but I can't
seem to find anyone who has similar frustrations.

Laptop is Toshiba Satellite A105-S2001 with the above mentioned wifi
card built in.

At work we have a very dense wireless environment, not only because of
wireless development in our office, but adjacent offices as well.
I've counted up to 28 SSIDs with a tool like NetStumber.

Few problems:

#1 Windows Wireless Utility often will show only 3 or 4 SSIDs, never
mind refreshing the list, it doesn't help. If I repair the connection
then usually it's OK.

#2 Even worse, the card will often refuse to connect to a router that
is about 5 feet away showing full signal strength - it winds up
connected to some other one instead. I have manually "disconnected"
from the offending SSID, following Windows' advice that it will not
make a connection to this SSID automatically in the future - but it
does anyway. Do the security settings make any difference? The one I
was trying unsuccessfully to connect to was open.

# 3 I also have the Ekahau wireless utility installed which I use on
occasion - seems to be more reliable, thus pointing at Windows itself
as the culprit. I am not aware that #2 is a common problem with Win
XP wireless. Is it?

#4 Even in the Ekahau utilty there does not seem to be a way to make
the connection "stay" on any given SSID for the purpose of doing some
range tests. What's a person to do?

#5 Certainly this is Windows - the wireless networks SSID list you get
from "View Availalble Wireless Networks" shows I am connected to one
SSID, but the tooltip that floats up from the task tray icon shows a
different one. I presume the task tray one auto-refreshes but the
other one does not, because if I refresh it manually then they do
agree.

Thanks for any insight.

Larry

.

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