I've had my A197VP for about 2 months, and it's been fine for most of that time. However, just a couple of weeks ago, I started getting problems with the wireless. It will pick up networks, and connect to them very briefly, then immediately disconnect.
At first, I thought it might be a horrible Windows Update glitch. I messed about for ages with SP2, driver updates and the like but got nowhere. In the end, I reinstalled everything from the Sony Recovery CDs in order the guarantee I had a known starting point (the machine had connected to my WLAN out of the box). Same problem. I tried it at a friends house too, same issue (so it's not the AP).
I phoned the support line and was basically messed about - they asked me to install the new drivers, again, treating me very much like a child even though I'd made a heck of an effort to identify the problem. Not funny, considering how long I had to wait on hold to speak to them :(.
Anyway, I've done this, installed the drivers from www.vaio-link.com onto the base recovered system, and I still have the same issue (no shock for me). However, in trying a few other things I found an interesting other piece of information - the disconnect only happens when the wireless card has an IP address. If I disable my DHCP server, such that the card can't effectively talk to anything because it defaults to a silly IP, the connection will stay up forever. As soon as I restart the DHCP server and ask the Vaio to refresh the IP, or if I assign an IP manually, the connection drops.
Apologies for the long post, but I've spent a lot of time investigating this and it's driving me crazy. This used to work, and the AP I'm using has been the same for over a year (I had a previous notebook) - a Netgear WG602, using 64-bit WEP. It suggests hardware fault to me, albeit a weird one since it initially can see the wireless networks - but given the erratic nature of it I'm at a loss otherwise.
Can anyone help me with this? I'd really prefer not to have to hang on the support line again given my last experience....
