The first thing I do when I notice WiFi issues on my Windows laptop is to bring up the WiFi Status window on my wireless adapter. This tells me the signal quality, the speed, and the SSID I'm connected to. If I select details (Network Connection Details) I then get more info like IP address and my MAC address.
But sometimes we need to know more, right? For that I use the netsh commands. If I open up my command prompt and type "netsh WLAN show interfaces", I now have more pieces of information to work with. Of special importance is the BSSID. This is the MAC address of the WAP I'm connected to. I also get Radio Type, which indicates which 802.11 protocol my adapter is using for the current connection. If you like this command and want to take it an extra step, you can write the following script into your favorite text editor: :loop netsh WLAN show interfaces timeout /t 5 goto loop Save this file as a .bat. When you run it, a command prompt will pop up and the command will run and refresh every 5 seconds. Now you have a pretty cool and useful tool to monitor your WLAN adapter. Regards, Hector ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
