What the hell is wrong with my wireless?

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-05-28 12:13pm

Got wireless set up today- only problem is, it seems to cut out every 30 minutes or so (i.e. run ipconfig, operation times out when I ping my own IP)- I have to reset main wireless connected to my cable modem to get it working again. Needless to say, this will be fucked if I ever try and download anything sizeable. Any ideas?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-05-28 12:45pm

what's the range on the wireless network, how many comps is hooked up and what's the distance between each? the distance might have some effect on it.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-05-28 12:48pm

So far, two, but right now my brother's computer isn't on (he's asleep)- just mine. My computer is the one with the cable modem, the main router (or whatever the terminology is) and it are 30 cm away from each other, literally. Distance would be ... erm ... 20m, straight? Maybe less. Not good with measurements.

This really sucks. Every 30 or so minutes, pull out cable, reinsert to continue using ...

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-05-28 01:16pm

Mine times out if I leave it idle for a long while, but it seems to take a long time.

Post by **Dalton** » 2004-05-28 02:00pm

What brand modem is it? I used to have a problem with my Belkin choking all the time.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-05-29 12:04am

Dalton wrote:What brand modem is it? I used to have a problem with my Belkin choking all the time.

Netgear; damn I hate being new to a certain aspect of technology- makes you a n00b ....

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-05-29 02:05am

Maybe this'll help

A reader wrote in with a question to which I, too, sought the answer. The question concerns 802.11 wireless connectivity, and persistent connection drops. It's not big enough for a large article, so I'm writing it up here for the community. Alex reports:

I have a problem I know you gurus can help me with. I have a Linksys WRT54G b/g wireless router, and while it worked perfectly for months, now the connection routinely drops every 10 minutes. When it drops, I have to sometimes wait 3-4 minutes before my connection returns. The confusing part about this is that it only happens on one of my laptops, but not on all of them. I have reinstalled everything, but nothing solves the problem. Please help!

It just so happens that one of the laptops in the Orbiting HQ suffers from this very same problem, so I've been able to duplicate this problem on my Linksys WRT54G router, with a Centrino laptop running Windows XP, standing 5 feet from the router. In the quest to help Alex, I started investigating this matter, and sure enough, I found out that people all over various message boards are discussing the problem.

As it turns out, if you use the Microsoft Windows XP SP 1-based Wireless Zero Configuration service to manage your wireless (aka, the "built-in client"), you're probably running into a horrible bug that Microsoft calls "behavior by design." The gist of this is as follows: if your wireless network is set to not broadcast your SSID, Microsoft's wireless manager will periodically drop your non-broadcasting WiFi connection in response to the presence of a broadcasting SSID-based network. You won't fully associate with that network, but the service will pop-up and tell you that there are multiple wireless networks to join, even if you have removed all other networks from your preferred settings (this contradicts Microsoft's report, which says it only affects preferred networks). The upshot of this is that you, the smart user who changes his default SSID and then sets it to not broadcast, now gets dropped off your network when you neighbor shows up with his new D-Link wireless router and not only fails to change the SSID from default to something else, but does not turn off broadcasting, either. And the worst part is that this happens just about every ten minutes or so. What a joy.

Your options are two (2.5, really): you can set your own router to broadcast your SSID, which Alex did and it resolved the problem. Alternatively, you can stop using the Windows Wireless Zero Configuration service and instead opt for another wireless client, namely that which came with your wireless card. Additional testing revealed that if your wireless settings are already configured and correct, you can actually stop and then disable the Wireless Zero Configuration service. The wireless still works, but your Wireless tab will disappear in Networking properties. This solution is not ideal, but it could be used in a bind.

If your connection is dropping and you're not being asked to connect to another network, make sure that you have not checked the "Enable IEEE 802.1x authentication for this network" checkbox, as this can also cause problems (but was not the root cause of this issue).

This fixed the dropped connections that I was having with my D-Link DI-624.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-05-29 02:33am

Thanks for that Glocksman. I don't remember what client the guy (a friend of mine) who set it up went for, but I'll be sure to show him this post when it comes to fix it (I was way too sick to pay any sort of attention last night).

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2004-05-29 03:21am

Please post the brand and model of the router and the network cards.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-05-29 11:16am

*embarrased*

was a virus I thought I had gotten rid of ages ago, still sitting there, infecting my computer ...

Man I feel foolish. It's dead now.

All fixed!

Thanks for the help anyways guys.

Post by **Dalton** » 2004-05-29 01:45pm

Heh. I remember once on my sister's laptop AOL would refuse to connect for no discernable reason, and after hours of frustration and cursing I discovered a single, lone virus on her machine. After eradicating that, it was automagically fixed.

And she wonders why it runs slow...just the other day I cleansed 24 viruses and 111 spyware hits...friggin' IE users.