Re: Wireless connections dropping - ready to throw this garbage out the window - HELP!

From: David (davidwnh_at_adelphia.net)
Date: 10/22/03 

Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 02:37:50 GMT

Keep with static addresses as this will cause fewer problems and less
traffic particularly if you continue having problems. The problem is not
always just the Signal to Noise Ratio of each machine in regards to the
AP but also each machine "seeing" each other so there are fewer
collisions amongst them. You could put each machine into ad-hoc mode(or
use a wireless sniffer)and from where they are to be ultimately located
see if they all have good SNR's amongst themselves. This may give you an
indication as to which machine(s) is not consistently "seeing" others.
If for example you had a single poorly situated machine you could then
try a USB wireless adapter on it in which you can better locate the
antenna to increase it's SNR with the others. If you are in an urban
environment you might also check to see if there are others nearby on
wireless and using the same channel(freq). Short of this the first
things to do is use a "short preamble" setting if your AP allows for
this. You can also try lowering the fragmentation threshold a little at
a time to try to ease high rates of collisions, but be warned the lower
this goes the more overhead you incur resulting in decreased
performance. If you do have a bad collision problem this would actually
improve overall performance particularly in a high traffic network. You
can also enable RTS/CTS if you have a traffic congestion problem. If
your machine was getting kicked off the network while others were doing
large downloads or streaming media then this might help. You need to
lower the RTS threshold to a level below the MTU to enable it. Here
again the lower you go the more overhead you incur.....

>
> Then I put the machines in their respective rooms thoughout the house, and
> hell began ; the wireless started dropping the connection.
>
> I checked the manuals and the forums, and rolled my sleeves. I moved my
> router to the other side of the room so its away from the large filing
> cabinet and its now raised. It is now, LINE-OF-SITE to the wire less card,
> about 30 feet away.
>
> There is no excuse for this not to work.
>
> I changed MTU for 1500 to 1492 (per one suggestion), upgrade firmware,
> disabled WEP (per another suggestion), reduced port speed to 10M. Signal
> still drops out ; sometime I can even connect at all. Even if I did , I
> would have a slow, unsecured connection!!!!
>
> One suggestion I read said to use static IP addresses. Sounded simple
> enough. I attempted to do that, but got nowhere, and am pulling out my hair
> now.... any help would be appreciated and I'm now ready to move into a
> monastery - like I said - it shouldn't have to be this hard.
>
> On the router, what to I do?
> ===================
> 1) There is a setting "Get Dynamically From ISP" . I assume I still leave
> this on as my ISP requires it.
>
> 2) There is a setting to "Use Router as DHCP Server" as well as a spot to
> reserve IP addresses for each connected machine ( by its MAC Address,
> machine name and desired IP - which is what I assume I want for 'static IP).
> I thought I would turn DHCP off at this point, but the manual says using the
> reservations means that "that PC will always receive the same IP address
> each time it accesses the DHCP server. " which implies I should leave the
> DHCP server enabled!
>
> On the XP machines, what do I do?
> =======================
> 1) Under Services, if I turn off DHCP service, most everything stops working
> ( cant open router menu, not internet access etc), so I left it automatic
>
> 2) Under LAN -TCP/IP properties, I tired deselecting 'Obtain an IP address
> automatically", and specified an IP address, (eg 192.162.0.X), a subnet
> mask(255.255.255.0) and a default gateway (192.168.0.1), but again this
> either cause loss of file sharing or loss of internet.
>
> On the Win 98 machines, what do I do?
> =======================
> Under Network - TCP/IP I tried deselecting 'Obtain an IP address
> automatically", and specified an IP address, (eg 192.162.0.X), a subnet
> mask(255.255.255.0) and a default gateway (192.168.0.1), disable WINS and
> DNS, and rebooted, got the IP address I expected, nut it didnt help my loss
> of connection problem.
>
> I put everything back the way it was and just left the reserved IP addresses
> in the router - it is indeed assigning the IP addresses I specified, but I
> dont think this is what was meant by static IP addresses, and they are still
> being assigned by the router...and I still have no connection.
>
> I guess its time to bring the unit back into the same room as the router to
> double check it still works, but assuming it does, why wont the friken thing
> work 30 feet way ???
>
> So bottom line, I'm ready to give up and throw all this garbage away ( not
> really - but I sure feel like it). I had a wired Netgear RT314 for years and
> it was great - this wireless world was a big mistake for me and now I'm out
> lots and lots of dollars.
>
> ANYONE HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS LEFT?
>
> Sorry for the long rant!
>
> Marvin
>
>

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