I am looking for any help and any experiences of any 802.11g roaming issues; that is any device equipped with a 802.11g card communicating with Access Points with 802.11g cards. Take in mind that this is in a facility. The issue with the roaming is that when a device that is communicating with an Access Point and it is moved down the hall right under another Access Point the device is still associated with the AP (Access Point) from where it left and will not associate the other APs until two minutes have past or until the device is rebooted. This is not what we want.
Access Points have 802.11g cards from Proxim (I believe originally Lucent then Orinoco) with latest firmware. The devices using 802.11g cards are IBM ThinkPad R50 (Model: 18306FU) with XP Pro SP1 using the IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter with latest driver (no firmware available), IBM ThinkPad R51 (Model: 288868U) with XP Pro SP1 using the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter with latest driver (no firmware available) and Motion Computing M1400 Tablet PC with XP Tablet Edition SP1 using the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter. Also an IBM ThinkPad T41 or T42 with XP Pro SP2 using the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter.
Our network engineer had spoke with someone from Proxim and after some amount of time emailed a possible solution which was a
registry string value named: ScanTimeValid
Proxim default value for ScanTimeValid is: 120000 ms (milliseconds) which should equate to 120 seconds (2 minutes)
Proxim suggestion was to make the value at 30000 ms which would be 30 seconds
This registry string value is to be put where the wireless adapter is located in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class
expand the Class folder then arrow down the folders that have keys that look like this example:
{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002bE10318}
and in the right pane you will see at very top in the Name column things like Windows CE USB Devices, Universal Serial Bus controllers, etc...until you arrow down and see Network adapters in the right pane. Expand the key that references the Network adapters and you will see keys that are numbered 0000, 0002, 0003 and so on. One of these will list the wireless adapter. You can see string values like DriverDate, DriverDesc, NameProvider, etc. This is where Proxim says to add the string value ScanTimeValid and to put the value at 30000.
This helps the roaming issue on the IBM ThinkPad R50 (Model: 18306FU) using the IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter and I noticed that more recent drivers actually put the ScanTimeValid string in the registry but I do not recall the default value (I believe it was 45 seconds). The adapter now switches over to the other Access Points with no problem.
Adding the ScanTimeValid string value to the devices (IBM ThinkPad R51, IBM ThinkPad T41 or T42 and Motion Computing 1400 Tablet PC) that use the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Adapter does not solve the roaming issue. Our engineer has open tickets to IBM and Intel; IBM has nothing now and Intel said try their latest driver (Version 9.0.1.9) and not to use their client software but it has not solved the roaming issue.
Does anyone have this problem, know of it, solved it and can anyone help?
Access Points have 802.11g cards from Proxim (I believe originally Lucent then Orinoco) with latest firmware. The devices using 802.11g cards are IBM ThinkPad R50 (Model: 18306FU) with XP Pro SP1 using the IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter with latest driver (no firmware available), IBM ThinkPad R51 (Model: 288868U) with XP Pro SP1 using the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter with latest driver (no firmware available) and Motion Computing M1400 Tablet PC with XP Tablet Edition SP1 using the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter. Also an IBM ThinkPad T41 or T42 with XP Pro SP2 using the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter.
Our network engineer had spoke with someone from Proxim and after some amount of time emailed a possible solution which was a
registry string value named: ScanTimeValid
Proxim default value for ScanTimeValid is: 120000 ms (milliseconds) which should equate to 120 seconds (2 minutes)
Proxim suggestion was to make the value at 30000 ms which would be 30 seconds
This registry string value is to be put where the wireless adapter is located in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class
expand the Class folder then arrow down the folders that have keys that look like this example:
{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002bE10318}
and in the right pane you will see at very top in the Name column things like Windows CE USB Devices, Universal Serial Bus controllers, etc...until you arrow down and see Network adapters in the right pane. Expand the key that references the Network adapters and you will see keys that are numbered 0000, 0002, 0003 and so on. One of these will list the wireless adapter. You can see string values like DriverDate, DriverDesc, NameProvider, etc. This is where Proxim says to add the string value ScanTimeValid and to put the value at 30000.
This helps the roaming issue on the IBM ThinkPad R50 (Model: 18306FU) using the IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter and I noticed that more recent drivers actually put the ScanTimeValid string in the registry but I do not recall the default value (I believe it was 45 seconds). The adapter now switches over to the other Access Points with no problem.
Adding the ScanTimeValid string value to the devices (IBM ThinkPad R51, IBM ThinkPad T41 or T42 and Motion Computing 1400 Tablet PC) that use the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Adapter does not solve the roaming issue. Our engineer has open tickets to IBM and Intel; IBM has nothing now and Intel said try their latest driver (Version 9.0.1.9) and not to use their client software but it has not solved the roaming issue.
Does anyone have this problem, know of it, solved it and can anyone help?
Facebook
Twitter