Netgear WGR614 Wireless Router: Intermittant loss of connectivity using 802.11g

Windows Firewall is turned OFF on both machines.

Also, a typo below. It should read: I have the original version WITHOUT the "v#" suffix.

(snip)

You didn't mention the revision of the WGR614 (v4? earlier?) or the PC card that you got (WG511 maybe?) but I've run into a similar problem as you described when trying to run my WG511 and WGR614v5 in WPA-PSK mode. It seems that after a bit of time, the security keying gets out of sync or something. Anyhow, I had to fall back to 128 bit WEP for the time being. It may take another firmware update before they get this part to work correctly.

Aside from that, make sure your PC cards are running in "WiFi spec" or "Auto(b+g)" mode. If, by any chance, it's locked into "b-only" or "g-only" it could be having issues on a router that wants to handle both.

Thanks for your help. In answer to your first question, I have the original WGR614v1, updated to the latest (non-beta) firmware upgrade.

The PCMCIA card I recently bought is the Netgear WG511T Super G 108 Mbp

WPA-PSK isn't supported in the router firmware I have (I think it's supported in the next firmware version, which is in beta now). Anyway, since I still have one 802.11b device, I'm stuck using WEP for now.

Here are my wireless router settings:

Name (SSID): OurFamilyName Region: United States Channel: 2 (any reason to pick a specific channel?) Mode: g and b Enable Packet Burst Mode: Checked

----- Enable Wireless Access Point: Checked Allow Broadcast of Name (SSID): Checked

----- Wireless card access list (set up with all mac addresses of wireless cards)

----- Security Encryption (WEP) Authentication Type: Automatic (other choices are Open System and Shared Key) Encryption Strength: 64 bit

-Scott

(snip)

FYI: At one of my locations, I use the WGR614v1 wireless router. I upgraded to the beta firmware many months ago because I was eager to have WPA encryption. Using it in conjunction with my WG511T notebook card, I have yet to have any problems with WPA-PSK enabled. It's amazing that the latest firmware for the WGR614v1 has been in beta form since April. I guess it was easier for Netgear to develop 5 different versions of the WGR614. Anyway, take care.

OK. First, I can't comment much on the WG511T because I don't have that particular card, but if there's any way to tell it to turn off any of it's advanced features (beyond the basic "g" capabilities) that would possibly be a start. Are you using the Netgear utility that runs in the taskbar? Or are you letting Windows XP run the show? Neither of these methods may even give you access to the features, possibly.

As far as the router settings go, the only one that stands out with any kind of flag is the Packet Burst setting. This *may* be an issue in the mixed b/g environment. You can try and disable it to see if connectivity improves, or if it hurts your throughput too much.

It is good that you use the MAC filtering. We do the same here. Once everything is up and working (or even before) you probably should turn off the SSID broadcast, though. Just one more step of security.

By any chance are you using Zone Alarm? If so, make sure it recognizes new networks when the computer boots up. I may be looking for the name you hve entered, and the computer is loging into "new network".

Fixer,

Thanks for the response. I did finally hard connect her desktop PC, and the problem went away, as expected. I doubt the client machine is the problem, since it's happening on both her laptop and her desktop.

John,

Thanks for the response. Nope, the only thing common to both systems (that isn't standard Windows XP Pro stuff) is McAfee Antivirus. However, I also have McAfee AV installed on the 802.11b laptop that doesn't experience any problems communicating.

The problem seems to be specific to 802.11g clients.

-Scott

(snip)

Here's something: I've disabled WEP encryption on the router, and it appears that the problem has gone away (since it's intermittent, I'll need more time before I'm 99% sure).

It appears that the 802.11g clients are "losing sync" with the router when WEP is enabled (64 or 128-bit). I don't know what "losing sync" actually means here, it's just a filler phrase like "reconfigure the plasma conduits"...

Anyway, since one poster said that he'd upgraded to the next (beta) version of the firmware (which supports WPA-PSK) with no problems, I'm thinking I'll just replace the remaining 802.11b PCMCIA card in use with an 802.11g card, then upgrade the router's firmware. Does that seem reasonable?

Thanks

-S

For whatever its worth, I have a similar issue with this router. It's supporting a mixed bag of adapters: 1 PCMCIA, 1 PCI, 2 USB. The three hooked to computers are various Netgear 802.11g devices, and there's a Tivo machine running an Linksys 802.11b USB adapter.

Each of the three "g" adapters will occasionally simply refuse to connect with the router. Going to the routers "Wireless Settings and selecting the "Apply" button (without changing any settings) always gets the errant adapter to connect. A PITA for sure, but not more than mildly annoying. I'm hoping for a firmware update soon!

The "b" USB adapter never has this problem, and the balks seem to occur at the same interval whether encryption is running or not...

Good lucl

That should work. Just the fact that you won't have the 802.11b client in the mix should help overall. In fact, you should then be able to force everything in your system to run as g-ONLY so the router won't have to keep looking for those slow b clients. It also prevents someone with a b card from even seeing your network.

Are you by any chance using ZoneAlarm? If so, I would work with the fact that ZoneAlarm issues a "new network" name when you log on, and that is at times not recognizing your wireless network. I have had the same problem, off and on, and Zone Alarm seems to be involved with this logon profile.

I had the same problem with ZoneAlarm finding a "new" network every time I rebooted, and losing all of my settings. This didn't seem to affect my wireless, but was a bit of a pain. I cured it from the zoneAlarm knowledgebase, deleting a corrupted database and starting again.

Very interesting. I'm having the same problem, though it appears to me that the router simply goes to sleep.

My config:

WGR614V5 Router Desktop PC wired via CAT-5 cable to port 1 on router HP Laptop using Broadcom wireless LAN board, WEP 128 bit

After 30 minutes or so of inactivity on the desktop PC, any attempt to browse a page, pull mail, or otherwise access the internet on the desktop, and I get a stall--"Operation Timed Out" or similar message. The laptop usually continues to work without a hitch. Although, lately, even the laptop experiences stalls.

I had read many posts of similar problems on the Netgear user forums (NO solution forthcoming) and a number of people solved the problem by resetting their router. That seemed rather drastic to me. Then, saw others who corrected the situation by connecting to the router as if to reconfigure it, and that woke it up.

From that, I got the bright idea to issue a "Ping" in a DOS window (I'm running W98, but the same thing works on XP in a Command window). I issue a Ping to my gateway IP--I even issued Pings to my DNS IP's. That works quite well--it wakes the router up, and the internet activity proceeds as it should.

No solution--just a bit of a different take on the same symptom.

Stranger

Scott,

I have found that on some occasions you have to scrub and re-enter the wep code on your wireless client. This immediately lets you reconnect. I have no idea why this fixes that problem but it works for me.

Perhaps you could rollback or upgrade the wireless card driver/software? Alternatively you could use the windows (WinXP SP2) client instead of the wireless card software.

There is an "Idle Timeout (minutes) =" field in your basic settings which should be set to 0. You have probably already set this but I thought I'd mention it anyway ;-).

Cheers Unicorn