3000 C200 Wireless Connectivity Issues

I just purchased a Lenovo 3000 C200 laptop. So far it's pretty darn nice, minus all the crap they load it up with. Anyway, I went to connect it to my existing wireless network and my connection is dog slow.

Running a 'ping -t ip_of_router' shows packets being dropped, slow turn around time on packets and roughly a 17% loss out of 239 packets sent. My average round trip time is 74ms. This does not change with the location of the laptop. If I am next to the router with 100% connection quality or with 80%. I have 5 other systems sharing the wireless and all run at full speed. When I connect a wired connection to the laptop it's fine, I can max the 100base-t. The connection seems to come in bursts. I will get a number of dropped packets, then suddenly the connection will come back, the speed will degrade and then nothing, rinse wash repeat.

I went to Lenovo's site and saw they had an updated Broadcom driver, so I downloaded and installed that to no avail. I have tried configuring the connection with Windows and with Broadcom's utility, again to no avail. All 5 other systems are running fine, they are all 802.11g, nothing mixed. I really don't know where to turn next. I don't have a great deal of Windows & Wireless experience

 

What type of router do you have, and what card exactly is inside your laptop? Try and get the model number from the system properties.

 

I am not certain how to get the model number at whatnot from within Windows. I can't seem to locate a way to get the PCI ID for the controller. What I did find is it's a Broadcom 802.11g using the driver BCMWL5.SYS version 4.80.28.7. Actually, I think I found it, 14E4:4311 Revision 01, which is Broadcom Corporation (0x14E4) Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-PCI Card (0x4311). Odd that the PCI table has it listed as a 'Dell Wireless'.

The router is a Linksys WRT54GS V3 running HyperWRT GSv3 Thibor15c.

 

Perhaps try out DDWRT instead

But more truthfully, try out a different firmware on that router. My broadcom card in my C100 started having some issues at school where they use Cisco equipment, but works fine with everything at my house, including a WRT54G(L) v4 with DDWRT.

 

Maybe I'll give DD-WRT a shot. I just find it odd that all my other systems connect up nicely, though they are all Linux based systems. The cards also range in make, I have a Netgear (forget the model) PCMCIA, Atheros PCMCIA, RA Link 2500, US Robotics ACX111, and an old 802.11b linksys pcmcia card I only use on occasion.

Thanks for the help. I'll give that a shot in the next couple of days...

 

Got it working with my current set up. I had my wireless configured for channel 8. I tried moving it to channel 10 (higher frequency channel) and voila, it's working beautifully now.

I figured it was a last minute try to get it working before I wiped HyperWRT off the router.

Thanks for all your help