After mucking around a bit with my wireless settings (in efforts to get WPA working with WDS with Sveasoft Alchemy with my new 5 port switch), I found my wireless malfunctioning in a most bizarre and highly annoying way. The symptoms were:

1. Wireless connection dropping roughly every 5 minutes
2. Completely backwards information coming from Windows and the little wireless tray icon
   1. When Windows said that one of my preferred networks was found, this in fact meant that the connection was dropped. Time for a right-click and “Repair”…
   2. After doing the Repair, Windows says that it was not successful and that the wireless is not connected. This, however, is a lie! The wireless works, well for about 5 minutes or so, until the cycle repeats…

After a few false starts trying to fix this problem by downgrading Alchemy, messing with the router settings, and uninstalling a dozen programs, I happened upon the real solution: Disable IEEE 802.1x authentication in Windows’ wireless properties for my access point. In case you don’t know where to find this, maybe this screenshot will help:

It turns out that this is recommended in various forums, if you do a search.