Hopefully there's a Mac person around that can shed some light on my problem. I have a 12" G4 Powerbook with 1.25 gig RAM and an Airport Extreme card. It connects to a Zyxel 660HW router/modem.
The problem that has just started is that when I try to download anything that is more than say about 2-3mb, either from my XP desktop (home network) or from internet directly (itunes music for example) from the Mac, it boots the wireless and the DSL offline. The XP desktop downloads fine.
I have tried powering off the router/modem and the Mac for a few minutes and then trying, but the same thing happens. Does anyone have any idea what would cause this? Until a few days ago, I had no problems with file transfers, etc. Thanks in advance........Dan
My guess is that's a Xyxel P-660HW-61. Is this correct?
"Boots the wireless and DSL offline" is a bit vague.
- Are you totally disconnected from the ISP?
- Does the DSL carrier light remain on?
- Or, is the router apparently hung.
- Are you doing this via a wired or wireless connection? If wireless, see if wired does the same thing.
- Can you login to the web page setup in the router? If yes, then you can extract the diagnostic info from the log file to see who initiated the disconnect, or if there was any error message.
- Firmware version? The latest appears to be 3.40(PE.10)C0. Verify your exact model number and country (Switzerland???) before updating the firmware.
A knowledgeable member of my local Mac user group recently warned about compatibility issues between Macs and ZyXEL wireless products. He wasn't specific, but a search in Apple's AirPort discussions area turned up a pretty good number of posts about problems with ZyXEL products.
Yes, it is the router/modem you mention and using the wireless, as opposed to the cat 5 directly connected to the ethernet ports, option, the light on the wireless connection and on the DSL signal go completely off for approximately 30 seconds During this time, no computers can access wireless and/or internet. Wired connection via cat
5 does not have the problem and yes tthe router menu is accessible from either machine. Mac doesn't automatically reconnect as I have to turn off airport card and then turn back on. It then connects fine. No other problems with wireless in regard to internet or itunes wireless streaming, just downloads in excess of about 2-3 megs. Zyxel firmware is most recent and I am anxiously waiting for a new version. There is a known bug in that product that disconnects internet every 30 minutes due to bugs in the WEP. I'm using MAC filtering only as they have promised a new version soon......won't hold my breath.
I think that the router is rebooting if both lights go off. Does the light pattern on the router look like a reboot? If this is the case, I don't have a clue why a download would initiate a reboot.
As I recall, this router does a beep when it reboots. Do you hear a beep?
That leaves a wireless or firmware problem.
Are you also using a P2P file sharing program? Such programs open large number of streams, which can hang some routers.
My wild guess(tm) is that something is wrong with the Zyxel firmware and that large (wireless) downloads are causing a reboot. Exactly why, I don't know. If you feel desperate, reset the Zyxel back to defaults, manually setup all the settings, and try again. Do not restore the setting from a backup. This may be a waste of time, but it's the only thing I can think of trying. Well, you could reload the firmware in case that was corrupted.
The known bug is with WPA, not WEP. It disconnects every time WPA initiates a re-key. This has been a known problem for at least 6 months. If Zyxel can't fix anything that serious within 6 months, then there's something wrong. |
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Incidentally, I have a problem with users that proclaim that their firmware is "the latest" or that their Windoze has been updated to the "latest patches". Upon furthur investigation, I usually find that such systems are out of date. Kindly supply the firmware version to be sure.
You missed one item on my list of questions. Can you get to the log output in the router and see what's happening? If it's rebooting, it will show it there.
Was this log after or during a failed download? I don't think so. IPCP and LCP closing is what a DSL modem does when it disconnects. The problem is who or what is inititating this disconnect. If this is immediately after turning on the router, there's something wrong with the DSL end of things. It should NOT disconnect by itself. However, I can't tell who or what is initiating the disconnect.
Do you have some type of activity timeout setup on the DSL connection? Something like "disconect after xx minutes idle time". The Zyxel P-660HW-61 might think you're idle while downloading. Just a wild guess(tm).
Current version is 3.40(PE.10)C0 on 11-07-2005 You're one version behind the times.
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this was the version that introduces the WPA problem. According to my readings, your version doesn't have the WPA problem. However, it may have other problems including the current one. Update.
One reason for the lack of firmware update is that Zyxel said that PE.10 did not cure the problem of WEP disconnection, which was about every 30 minutes to the T. I'd like to secure with WPA, but did't see that option in the router setup. To your knowledge, can this one be set up for WPA? If so, anything special in the menu I should look for?
At this point, I'll update firmware and at very least see if that helps the Mac problem. As far as an activity timeout, that's not the case as I leave it idle all the time and the XP machines can download very large files (and transfer comp to comp) with no problem.
I think log is after failure. I can try to duplicate problem again (it's easy to do!) and see what the logs say after.
01/01/2000 00:00:44 ppp:IPCP Opening
14 05/30/2006 22:36:29 Time initialized by NTP server 129. 192.168.1.1
15 05/30/2006 22:36:37 Firewall default policy: UDP (W to W/PRESTIGE) 202.99.172.171:41096 212.152.9.86:1026 ACCESS BLOCK
16 05/30/2006 22:36:41 WEB Login Successfully User:admin
happened, just the reconnect. anyway, will try firmware and see what happens.....thanks
It looks like the firmware update has solved the problem for now. I received it directly from Zyxel and is not published due that there are other things, that do no affect me, that are still an issue in the beta firmware. WPA is active and seems to be working with no disconnections as well.
If anyone else has similar problems with the Zyxel 660HW-61, I would be happy to send the firmware version to them. Thanks for the assistance with this.....Dan
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