Wireless connection on PC getting errors on RX packets - tool to diagnose connection?

[RaiderJ]

I have a router running Tomato, and a USB 2.0 wireless adapter on my PC. My PC has a solid connection to the router... but I'm getting a bunch of RX Retry packets being sent. So, it appears my wireless setup is malforming packets in some way. Not sure if it's the router or the wireless adapter. I'm not getting any TX Error packets.

Any good tools that I can run to help isolate the issue? The firmware on my router is up to date, as are the drivers on my USB adapter.

 

[imagoon]

RX errors in wireless are common and expected. It is not a clean medium and is shared so noise causes errors.

 

[spidey07]

Totally normal. One of the many reasons wireless is slow.

 

[RaiderJ]

Well, ended up swapping out routers, and now my RX errors are significantly less, about 1/4 of what they were. Not sure what's wrong with my router... but in the process of trying to upgrade to DD-WRT it's no longer responsive.

Going to see if I can fix it, but maybe it's just a dead router! It's been going strong for probably 4 years now, might be time for an upgrade!

 

[RaiderJ]

Actually, when I pulled the router out to do some un-bricking, I found the antenna was slightly loose. Tightened that up. Guess that would explain the lost packets!

Held down the reset button for 1 minute, cycled the power, and now DD-WRT is up and running! Easiest unbricking I've ever done. Guess I don't have a bad router afterall!

 

[gsaldivar]

Held down the reset button for 1 minute, cycled the power, and now DD-WRT is up and running! Easiest unbricking I've ever done. Guess I don't have a bad router afterall!

If you check the flash instructions, most 3rd party firmwares like DDWRT and Tomato have you clear NVRAM as one of the final steps. This is to avoid any problems caused by the new software reading parameters saved by an old firmware version which can lead to unexpected results. You might have skipped that step when you did the upgrade ...

 

[RaiderJ]

If you check the flash instructions, most 3rd party firmwares like DDWRT and Tomato have you clear NVRAM as one of the final steps. This is to avoid any problems caused by the new software reading parameters saved by an old firmware version which can lead to unexpected results. You might have skipped that step when you did the upgrade ...

Yeah, I did :|

Could be why OpenWRT didn't work the first time around grabbing a WAN IP. I didn't want to pull the router out from behind the TV. Guess I should follow the directions next time. I KNOW about this process too, guess I was being lazy this morning!