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Connection drops for 3 seconds every 10-15 minutes on wireless.

T

Tal

Golden Member
First, my relevant setup:

Windows XP on Laptop
D-link 614+ router/ap
Dell Truemobile 1150 pcmcia card
Other wired boxes on network working fine.
----------------------------------------------------------

My new D-link 614+ (Thanks HotDeals) with my Dell Truemobile 1150 (Orinoco Gold) works great. Good speed. Great Signal. BUT..... If I am actively surfing or streaming mp3's or video, after about 10-15 minutes, I get a hiccup and my wireless connection drops for just a few seconds. Long enough of course that copying files from network shares, or the streaming is halted.

I updated the D-link 614+ out of the box practically to 2.18 firmware as I wanted the ability to turn down power etc, and because the D-link Tech and others in DSLreports forum said it was working good. After I had the problems, I tried disabling 4x mode on the D-link. Didn't seem to help. Updated firmware on the Dell card to 8.72. Installed the Dell Card manager. Nothing seems like a go. I installed the Orinoco 5v pcmcia driver for the dell card in Windows XP and that doesn't help either. Any info or advice? -TAL
 
Well, if you have updated the firmware on both the wireless card and the access point, and updated the driver for the wireless card, the problem might be due distance. Or, maybe one of the devices is bad. Have you updated the BIOS of the laptop yet?
 
I have a similar "problem" with my setup. Every once in a while, my wireless connection will disconnect and reconnect. I'm using an Orinoco PC card and a Belkin WAP, all with the latest firmware.
 
I actually have the exact same problem. I tried manually setting the MAC, tried different channels, reducing power, increasing power, short and long preamble, etc but nothing works. If I download a file from the internet, after about a minute, I get disconnect and the people hardwired to the router gets disconnected as well. This problem is really pissing me off. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
Well, I have seen this problem before, and I have an older SMC Barricade POS. Is anyone using WEP on their access point? What happens to your wired users if you are not using your wireless connection?
 
Exact problem as mafen, the hardwired people get disconnected too.

Help, tried call dlink but waited for 30 min and quit.

Alex
 
You should also check to see if anyone happens to be on a 2.4ghz cordless phone in your house, or if someone has the microwave on as both of those can make you lose connection.

mrpeabody
 
I'm not sure everybody here is talking about the same thing. If the descriptions being given for the intervals between dropped connections are accurate, then these symptoms are almost certainly not being caused by the same problems.

But, for the people who are running Windows XP (especially with SP1 applied) and who are experiencing network dropouts on wireless clients that occur at regular intervals --

First thing I'd suggest for all of you who are using Windows XP with SP1 applied is checking to be sure that 802.1x authentication is NOT enabled on those clients. That factor alone will cause connection to be dropped every three minutes when you aren't connecting to a server that can provide certificates. (A SOHO router can't.)

If that is not the problem, just try getting your wireless connection established and then turn off the Wireless Zero Configuration client. You can do that by going into the Services applet under Admin Tools, OR you can just open a CMD prompt and turn off the service by entering the command "NET STOP WZCSVC" (no quotes) and hitting the Enter key. Again, this suggestion is for Windows XP users only. Turning off the WZCSVC in Windows XP seems to allow at least some wireless network clients with crappy firmware or drivers to maintain wireless connections once they've been established. Turning off the service will do no harm. (But do NOT disable it!) You can restart it again by doing NET START WZCSVC from the CMD prompt or by using the Services applet in the Administrative Tools or by just restarting the computer, since the service is set to autostart at boot time by default.

I hope this information helps at least some of you.

BTW, none of the above has anything whatsoever to do with Ethernet (wired) clients. If both wired and wireless clients are being dropped from a router, then there's either a very consistent configuration on those clients or (far more likely) there's a configuration or firmware problem on the router, I think.

- prosaic
 
I'm starting to think it may be a firmware issue. I will try changing 802 auth and wireless zero config and see if that helps. Only problem I have is that the laptop and card worked PERFECTLY with my D-link 900 AP that I just replaced with the 614+ Otherwise I wouldn't be so pissed. 🙂 It's almost gotta be on the router side. I might try to downgrade the firmware. Are the rest of you having similar problems running the newest firmware? -TAL

PS: Thanks for the responses.
 
Please keep us informed of what happens.

BTW, I noticed a that I skipped the groove at the end of my previous message.

I said:

"BTW, none of the above has anything whatsoever to do with Ethernet (wired) clients. If both wired and wireless clients are being dropped from a router, then there's either a very consistent configuration on those clients or (far more likely) there's a configuration or firmware problem on the router, I think."

I meant to say:

BTW, none of the above has anything whatsoever to do with Ethernet (wired) clients. If both wired and wireless clients are being dropped from a router, then there's either a very consistent MISconfiguration on those clients or (far more likely) there's a configuration or firmware problem on the router, I think.

I guess my meaning was apparent, but I hate making mistakes like that when being precise can be so important to the outcome of a conversation.

- prosaic
 
The authentication was turned off, but it seems fine with Wireless Zero config turned off. I was able to copy a 220MB file over from another of my pc's and I didn't lose my connection. I will try streaming a video later and see if it seems good. That kinda sucks that the wz causes that problem if that is indeed the case. Some "feature." Hrm. I wonder why I didn't have problems before? -TAL
 
So you're saying that turning 802.1x authentication off still didn't fix the connection dropout problem, but disabling the WZC service did fix it? As I said, I've seen that before. I don't know why you didn't have trouble before but do have it now. I suspect that one of the recent critical updates from the Windows Update site has caused this problem with a lot of wireless clients. I discovered that turning off WZCSVC fix this issue because the affected clients were acting as though they were constantly looking for alternative connections and every time they put up a message about wireless networks being available they lost their original connections. Very annoying behavior!

The real point here is, though, that it doesn't happen with all clients. I'm inclined to wonder whether the problem really is with WZC or whether it is with the client firmware or drivers. The reason I wonder is that the clients that behave this way have all had lots of firmware and / or driver problems under Windows XP. I guess it's a moot point. Someone isn't getting along with someone, and we just have to deal with it -- for now. I hope some people amongst the client vendors and Microsoft will get this sorted out soon.

I hope this at least provides some kind of relief from the issue. Please let me know if you have any questions.

- prosaic
 
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