Linksys WRT54G wireless dropping when saving excel files

[luckysnafu]

I just bought and installed a brand new Linksys WRT54G wireless router(version 2.2) because our old one was giving us problems. I have 3 wireless laptops and 2 wired computers. All 3 wireless comps and one wired use WinXP Pro and the other wired comp uses Redhat, acting as our file server(using samba).

After setting everything up, all computers can access the internet and each other and the file server. I am having a problem trying to open and save excel files to the file server. Sometimes while opening an excel file or after opening one and trying to save it, the wireless connection drops and the file never saves. The wireless connection comes back within a minute or so. I called linksys and all they did was update my firmware, but the problem was still there. I am using one of the hacked firmwares, alchemy_6rc5. This problem only occurs with excel files. I have opened and saved word, access, powerpoint, jpeg and just about any other file I had, both big and small. This problem occurs on any firmware(i have tried 3 already), with any wireless security(open, WPA, or mac ID filtering) and it occurs on all 3 wireless laptops.

Has anybody had any problems like this? Is there a setting that I have messed up on the router? I tried seraching the internet for an answer but have so far come up empty.

I have the same router at home with a fedora core 2 file server and i don't have any problems opening or saving excel files. My router is version 1.x, not version 2.2.

 

[Kelemvor]

That's really strange. Does it do it with ALL excel files or just a certain one ou are having issues with?

Somethign else I found suggested turning off your anti virus software and seeing if that helps...

 

[luckysnafu]

it doesnt happen for ALL excel files, it seems to be a hit or miss kind of thing. but it does seem to happen more often with larger excel files. i think it might have something to do with the packet size being sent through the router and the router not being able to handle something so it shuts off the wireless connection.

 

[luckysnafu]

ok, I returned the original linksys router for another one. I could not find a solution so maybe it was a faulty router. Well I installed the new one and have the exact same problem, only with excel files. I have installed this at work AND at my apartment and can verify the error in both locations.

I can verify that this DOES NOT happen on the older versions of the WRT54G, because I have an original 1.0 version and this doesnt happen. I returned the WRT54G version 2.2 and bought a netgear wireless router and dont have this problem at all. I think there is a flaw in version 2.2 of the linksys router. I will be calling linksys sometime to report this problem.

Can anybody replicate this error??? I would like some confirmation that it is not just an isolated incident.

To test:
On a wireless computer, access a networked drive on another computer that is wired to your network. Try to open an excel file. If it opens successfully change the file and then hit save and see if it will save it. I have had the wireless connection drop out totally, not just for the computer saving the file. Other times the wireless stays connected, but access to the network or internet is lost. Windows will then report a delayed failed write or somehow tell you it was unable to save the file and does not have access to the file or network drive.

This error does not happen every single time, but it happened more often then not while we were testing.

 

[Fardringle]

I don't have the same router version as you do so I can't confirm whether or not it is just your location, but I have do have a version 2.0 of the router and have absolutely no problems at all accessing, creating, and changing Excel and Word documents on other computers on my network. I am running the Sveasoft Satori v4 firmware on the router.

 

[luckysnafu]

thanks for the info Fadringle. I bought the router at worstbuy and when I returned it I looked for an older version but couldn't find one.