wireless dropping please shed some light

Ok folks I’ve got a question regarding my laptop and its wireless connection. I hope you can help.

Ive recently purchases a dell 1530 notebook. Its very swish and has one of these Intel pro wireless cards in it. Now ive had wireless before (with a dlink g604t) and it was pretty pants so Ive gone and purchased a belkin 54g access point hoping it would help.

The problem ive got is I can not stream stuff or play a game. If I look at a video on youtube it loads a bit (30+ secs maybe a min) then stops. The same happens if I try and listen to the bbc over the internet. It works for a min or two then cuts out and spends 5 mins buffering / reconnecting. There also appears to be an issue with basic web pages. In the fact that if I have a lot open then sometimes internet explorer will crash and restart. Basically the speed is really bad. If I plug it into the back of the access point with a cable then it works fine.

How I would really appreciate your help on this as its quite annoying. There’s a beer in it for anyone that solves it 

Ive got
1530 dell laptop.
Intel pro wireless card
Belkin 54g access point.
Virgin media cable.

 

What does the signal strength and speed indicator say for the wireless connection?

Now.. wheres my beer?

 

signal strength are good.

wheres the speed?

 

I am guessing the connection has to do with either 1 the way your house was built, 2 something to with the telephones interfering or microwave, and 3 the router. I have my own computer buisness and deal alot with people that have the same problem. I usually recomment upgrading to the new wireless N technology. I would also reccomend getting either Linksys or D-Link. I have had the most success with these two brands.

 

It's the Belkin AP. Belkin is know to not work right 90+% of the time. I have yet to get any of their products that worked. Switch to dlink, netgear, linksys (some products, have to be careful on which models that work).

Why did you get the Belkin when the Dlink was working with the other pc?

In any case make sure you have the latest firmware.

Also check to make sure your power management is dropping power to the wireless. The can be in several locations including the Adv Port Properties.

 

I've been waiting for a thread like this so I can try to get my own similar question answered; unfortunately, I think that the answer is, as you say, to replace the Belkin router I have.

Basically, I have a problem a little like the OP's, except that my connection typically drops when I'm trying to download a large file (anything over 3MBs generally has a risk of being dropped). I have a Belkin G MIMO router, and my notebook is a _Sony vaio Z1A with an Intel wireless a/b card (yes, I can see the shock on your faces now - consider, tho, that I bought the thing new in Feb. 2003). The problem typically gets worse in the evening, when there is more congestion in the wireless atmosphere (I live in an apartment bldg, with other wireless setups nearby - I usually spot about 2 to 5 in the evenings).

I doubt if it has anything to do with placement per se because the router is located on the top shelf of a cabinet and I usually sit about 8 feet away from the cabinet, facing it with the door open - i.e., I can see the router directly. (The cabinet contains other electronic gear - LCD TV, cable box, cable modem, DVD player, stereo, CD player - which is about 2 feet away from the router, and none of which broadcasts or is used to intercept broadcast signals - I suppose interference from there is possible, but I don't consider it likely because the problem occurs with everything powered off - although not unplugged).

Any thoughts on why I get so many dropped connections would be great, and just ask if I haven't given enough (or the correct) information.

 

Have you tried different channels? It sounds like everyone is trying to use the same channel.

 

if the comp comes with another wifi manager app, try disable it and leave the handling to internal windows services

cheers ...

 

ok then folks,

Im about 6ft and direct line of sight from the access point so im guessings its not the way the house is built (although it is shoddy ) the d-link one i used in another house and it was poop. playing counterstike source on it and it used to spike and allsorts. So thinking its the router i got the belkin one.

ive been playing with it and have set it to g only and changed the channel that it sits on this has improved things a little as i can now watch a vid on youtube. however in cs i still get a choke of 40+ which makes me think the connection isnt too good.

if its definatly the access point can you recomend one for me to get instead.?

 

I've tried both letting the router auto select the channel as well as setting a fixed channel with each of the available channels, without noticing any particular change in behaviour.

I do, however, think that the source of the problem is, as you point out, probably channel-crowding (I haven't spent enough time keeping track of all of my neighbors' routers to see what sort of channel usage pattern arises, so I don't know for sure) - what bears this out is that the dropped connection tends to happen more often in the evening and not in the morning, when fewer routers are being used.

That being said, is there some reason why the Belkin router is such a milquetoast that it drops a connection just because there's congestion on the channel? Also, could there be some relationship to the fact that my notebook only uses the A or B protocols whereas the router is G, with backwards compatability for A and B? I'm thinking that it may just be that when a channel gets crowded, the router is set to sacrifice the A/B traffic first in order to maintain its preferred G traffic?

 

Try Setting The Router To B Only ?

 

I will give that a try as a diagnostic tool; however, since the other computer that uses this wireless router (at least, the only other computer that is supposed to be using it ), has b/g wireless capacity, and, more importantly, belongs to my wife , I would not do that as a permanent solution lest I degrade the quality of the connection for that other computer.

 

I would recommend:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127215

 

Shyster1, I have had problems with just plan wired routers from belkin. So I do not recommend for any thing except maybe a door stop. Certain not reliable for every day or temp use.

Most all router problems are firmware related. I would buy a router that supports dd-wrt firmware. Then use the dd-wrt firmware and set the router up as an AP. I've done this on many locations due to the price of a stand-alone AP. Go to dd-wrt site and lookup what hardware is supported in the FULL Version.

My best AP is my USR5450 AP, with a matching card. It does not like my realtec mini-pci card, due to the TI Chip. But the set is solid as a rock. Never needs to be reset, was in operation in for over 2.5 years before I started playing with the dd-wrt firmware.

 

Thanks for the help. I agree with you about the usefulness of Belkin routers (although, three years ago, when I ended up with the Belkin, I had even more problems with the Linksys and D-link routers I tried first). At this point I'm going to be getting a new notebook, probably this week or next, and I think that'll be a good opportunity to replace the router as well (I'm going to give draft-N a try), so my main concerns will be (a) getting best performance with the new system, and, more importantly, (b) not causing any problems with my wife's system (as a wise married man once told me, the smart husband always has the last word - "yes, dear" ).

Right now, I also have a wireless print server from Netgear that seems to be behaving itself, mostly - if it hasn't been used in a day or two, it needs a 10-second power-down before it'll take print jobs - so I'm inclined to replace the Belkin with a Netgear draft-N router unless I can find evidence that the brand is insufficiently reliable.

In terms of the _Sony vaio, I'll probably just keep a short bit of ethernet cable handy so I can wire it into the network whenever I need to d/l something big - that or get adventurous and see if I can swap the wireless card out for one that talks b/g (it's too old to be able to deal with a draft-N card, I think).

I'm not too conversant with APs (as opposed to routers, where I at least speak enough of the lingo to be able to ask for "el baño" ), so my biggest, uninformed fear is leaving too big of an open door for someone unauthorized to get onto my network - I live in a big apartment building (which thankfully seems to have a lot of structural steel that cuts down on signal travel - I can barely get cell phone reception, and I have to stick my blackberry out the window for it to grab a signal) and even the basic Windows network finder can pick up anywhere from 2 to 10 other signals - many of which are unsecured. I would certainly consider converting the Belkin into a backup AP for purposes of getting the _Sony vaio on wirelessly if needed, but only if I can be comfortable that my network security is still good enough to keep out the curious and the bored (I have no illusions about the fact that even a halfway determined hacker could get into my network in a heartbeat if s/he wanted to ).

In terms of future router choices, I'll look into the dd-wrt firmware you mentioned, and try to learn a little something before I go out and invest in new hardware this time.

 

While your looking read the reviews on smallnetbuilder.com . He is pretty good about pointing out problems. But with draft 11n the firmware can be changing weekly if their actually working on fixing bugs. I was a beta tester for the firmware in my netgear router. I was getting atleast 1 sometimes 3 updates a week. About the time I finished 1 I had another to test. But in the end after I helped them over the big hump. I quit the testing and justed used it. They are still fixing bugs 2 yrs latter but every thing is working except some loging features. Which would be nice since I run a snmp server to monitor all of my hardware. The bad news with 11n is they (mfg) have never got all of the bugs out when it comes to playing with each other. And I only expect it to be worst when if comes to 11n. Hopefully they have learned that they need a powerful cpu and ram to have a good performance. And I expect some of the early 1.0 firmware routers not to be upgradeable. I think all of the client cards will be since is resources is shared with the NB. Make sure you get one that has GigE lan ports, I noticed their are still a few out there that do not. Even though most ISP can not fill up a 10BaseT.

Good Luck on your adventure. I'm holding off till my NB dies. The internal wireless card just did last week. Junky Ralink card.

 

Thanks for the info. I've been putting off replacing the vaio for about a year, but I'm finally getting to the end of my tether with it (and the nutty _Sony proprietary features) and there are some things that I'd like to start doing, like learning some semi-serious photo-editing on the gigabytes of digital pix I've taken with my DSLR, that I just cannot comfortably do on the vaio, as well as other nits like the wireless, the touchpad going wonky every so often, the fact that I'm on my second hdd replacement in a year - and PATA drives are getting harder and harder to find, the dingy matte screen, and a crappy CD/DVD drive that can only read, not write, basic DVDs (I was going to do a full system backup to CD, but quit when the backup software I was using told me I would need 15 CDs ).