Linksys wireless-G notebook adapter pings Cisco each second

seems weird - there must be some other piece of software that you are running or viewing that would ping the cisco website ?

No kidding, I can't see why cisco would want however many people own this card who are online pinging their website.

Adair

'Tis true. Given the behaviour that I documented under an obnoxious heading with the word "Linksys" in the subject line, I'm not surprised. I can even see how it can be argued to be reasonable!

But I think I I found the solution. The "monitor" can be "closed", which just means that you press the "X" at the upper right corner of the monitor GUI window to make it disappear (without any representation down in the taskbar). It is not considered "off" because the icon still appears on the system tray. In the "closed" state (but not "off"), the continuous pings do not take place.

However, if you have a software firewall on the PC blocking the pings when the monitor is "open", then the ping command will take almost

100% of the CPU cycles. I consider this to be a nontrivial design flaw.

The workaround is to allow the outgoing pings to that IP address only, with logged notification, and to close the monitor when you're done establishing a working connection with the access point. The monitor is much needed in establishing the connection because of the anomalous behaviour that I described earlier, under the recent obnoxious heading with the word "Linksys" in the subject line. I will try to remain professional henceforth.

Can I get some additional information?

1. Hardware version of the WPC54G card? It's on the serial number sticker. v1.0 thru v7.0
2. Any particular operating system? Your news header shows G2/1.0 on a Pocket PC. What maker and model PDA? I'm curious.
3. What version driver are you using? Looks like every hardware version has a somewhat different driver and "Network Monitor" version.

I have a WPC54G version something in the office that I can try. I hadn't seen this behavior, but then I wasn't looking for it.

I don't wanna offer suggestions until I get a clue as to the OS and hardware version.

wow - interesting that the card might be running in a PDA. In that case, I wonder if the continuous pings might be some method of keeping the card alive vs going to sleep, or maybe looking for a firmware update... but badly implemented... or ??

The original posting showed these headers... I see the "G2" agent, but also the HTTP agent implies Firefox on XP (or is that NT 5.1) ?

No version designation beside any of the 3 bar codes, but beside the model number WPC54G, it says version 3.1.

Hmm, that's odd. This is a laptop, Windows 2000 service pack 4.

To get the driver version, I went to: Start -> Settings -> NetworkAndDialupConnections ->

LocalAreaConnect4 -> General(tab)

The topmost field is "Connecting using" and shows "Wireless-G Notebook Adapter WPC54G V3 #2".

The [Un]Install/Properties buttons are grayed out because I'm using a power user account, but clicking on Configure pops up a window entitled "Wireless-G Notebook Adapter WPC54G V3 #2 Properties" containing tabs "General", "Driver", and "Resources".

The Driver tab shows:

Wireless-G Notebook Adapter WPC54G V3 #2 Driver Provider: The Linksys Group, Inc. Driver Date: 18/02/2005 Driver Version: 3.100.64.0 Digital Signer: Not digitally signed

Clicking on Driver Details pops up a Drive File Details window containing:

Wireless-G Notebook Adapter WPC54G V3 #2 Driver files: c:\\WINNT\\system32\\DRIVERS\\bcmwI5.sys Provider: Broadcom Corporation File versoin: 3.100.64.0 built by: WinDDK Copyright: 1998-2005, Broadcom Corporation All Rights

Note that the "I" in bcmwI5" could be a captial "i", the number "1", or the small "L" -- the file doesn't actually exist with the path shown. The closes filename in that directory is bcm42rly.sys.

Any light that you can shed on it would be welcome. Thanks.

The hardware version is 3.1. <

Your news posting header shows: User-Agent: G2/1.0 I thought that was a newsreader for Windoze Mobile, but apparently the designation is used by some others. Sorry for the bad guess.

Do you have two wireless WPC54G v3 wireless adapters showing under: Control Panel -> Network Weird things sometimes happen if you have duplicate adapters configured. Delete or disable one. I don't think this has anything to do with the pinging.

Old driver. Go unto:

and install 4.100.15.5 1/29/2007. Looking at the revision history, it appears that you're 5 releases and

3 years behind on updates.

I found the box, but there's no card inside. I'll see if I can find it, but methinks it best if you would install the latest driver first and see if the problem goes away.

~ >> I'm running the Linksys Wireless-G Notebook Adapter, Wireless Network ~ >> Monitor v3.1, for the Linksys WPC54G card. It ping cisco every second ~ >> (Out ICMP [8] Echo Request localhost->

[198.133.219.25]; ~ >> Owner: TCP/IP Kernal Driver). If I turn off the monitor, I can no ~ >> longer access the internet. Before I poke another permanent hole in ~ >> my firewall for this ping, is there a way to operate the wireless card ~ >> without having this ping? As well, has any other WPC54G user observed ~ >> this ping? ~ >>

~ >

~ > seems weird - ~ > there must be some other piece of software that you are running or viewing ~ > that would ping the cisco website ? ~ >

~ ~ No kidding, I can't see why cisco would want however many people own this ~ card who are online pinging their website. ~ ~ Adair

Consider the possibility that they guys who wrote the code for the Linksys card didn't ask the guys who run

for permission to ping ... but at least they "kept it in the family".

It could have been worse - a certain competitor of Linksys' shipped tons of their routers preconfigured to query a public NTP server - and worse, to batter it savagely if it didn't respond in time. Several others have done this as well.

Aaron

No. Apart from a number dialup connections that I haven't used in a long while, I have

• Local Area Connection (wired ethernet, when available, not used simultaneously with wireless)

• Local Area C> Wireless-G Notebook Adapter WPC54G V3 #2

Good idea. Thanks for that. I'll have to put it > I have a WPC54G version something in the office that I can try.

Thanks, Jeff.

Hmmmm.

If I recall correctly,

[198.133.219.25] no longer responds to pings.

It definately did once upon a time but does not today and has not for maybe a year.

I tried the link for the updated driver below, but it's for version 7 of WPC54G (versus version 3 that I have). The page also warns against using drivers for the wrong version. I also confirmed that I do in fact have the latest drivers for the version 3 card. Notwithstanding the warning, what has been the experience of other version 3 card owners who may have used version 7 card drivers?

-------- Orig> 2. Any particular operating system? Your news header shows

No. Apart from a number dialup connections that I haven't used in a long while, I have

• Local Area Connection (wired ethernet, when available, not used simultaneously with wireless)

• Local Area C> Wireless-G Notebook Adapter WPC54G V3 #2

Good idea. Thanks for that. I'll have to put it > I have a WPC54G version something in the office that I can try.

Thanks, Jeff.

The link I posted goes the WPC54G support page. On the support page is a pull down menu with a list of hardware version numbers. Select v3.0 which leads to:

Argh, you're correct. I somehow picked the wrong hardware version number. You currently have the latest version installed for v3 (3.100.64.0 7/28/2005). Please do NOT try drivers from other versions as the hardware is quite different between version. It won't work.

Incidentally, I never did find my WPC54G card so I can't verify the problem (pinging Cisco every second). I don't have a clue what to do next. You might get better results from the Linksys support forum.

Actually, I posted a solution that works for me in this thread at

long as you exit the card's software "Monitor" on the system tray, you can "close" the window using the "X" at the upper right corner and the pinging stops. As I said, it makes sense, since the Monitor is monitoring connectivity with the internet. The simplest way would be a ping.

Thanks anyway!

Thanks. I missed a few articles switching from Newsguy to Supernews. Nice troubleshooting.

Yeah, that makes sense if Cisco is willing to accept the traffic. A few million Linksys cards that use the supplied Monitor program, pounding on their web server with 84 bytes per second, is still a substantial amount of traffic. That would be: 84 bytes/sec * 1 million users = 84MBytes/sec of traffic to Cisco's web server. Once per second is excessive for a connectivity monitor as once a minute or bettery yet, variable ping rates, would have been adequate. They could also have pinged the local ISP gateway instead a single target server.

I still think you should post something to the Linksys forum on the topic, for no better reason than to get their attention for what I consider to be rotten software design.

Is it that bad though? It is only pinging when the monitor is up. Once you see everything working, there isn't much point in monitoring.

What happens when you minimize the monitor window or leave it showing in the system tray? Does it continue to ping? If yes, I consider that rather bad design. If it stops pinging, it's not a problem.

It stops pinging. So it's not as bad as initially described. What probably needs beefing up is the documentation explaining the use of the monitor, and what it does. As well as an improvement in the GUI, which only shows partial info in all its fields when the string is too long. This seems to be the case most of the time.