WPA fails to renew automatically?

My BEFW11S4 sets up fine with my wife's MN-510 USB adapter. Running unsecured, I had no problems for years. Since I activeated WPA the wife looses the ability to connect to the internet once a day, or so. I thought this was a DCHP problem and changed her to a static IP. No joy. The router is set to renew the key every hour. That does not coincide with the failure [more like 24 hours.] Even when she can't connect to the internet, the wife's task bar connectoid always shows that the status is fine, signal very good, etc. ip/release ip/renew or "repair" don't restore the connection. WZC shows "automatic" connection to my network. Reboot [tedious] restores connection. Using WZC to disconnect and reconnect restores the connection when I manually enter the WPA. I'm guessing this is a security issue. The disconnect/reconnect/reenter work around is OK but I'd like to make this a bit easier. Any clue as to why this happens? Thank you.

Reply to
John Keiser
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"John Keiser" hath wroth:

The BEFW11S4 does not support WPA. It will only do WEP.

If you activated WPA on your wife's computah, and it works, then there's an excellent chance she's connecting to someone elses wireless router.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Jeff, I respect and enjoy your insightful comments. But, indeed, the BEFW11S4 [firmware 1.52.02 and earlier, as I recall] set up screen does support WPA [pre-shared or radius - I'm using pre-shared]. Wife is definitely logged on my router [and we share files as well].

You may mean that the MN-510 does not support WPA. It worked even with the MS Broadband Utility [I thought the software perhaps did not support WPA] but to eliminate that as an issue, I disabled the Utilty and rely on WZC. Since it works fine until it disconnected, and then works fine again once I reconnect, is it a MN-510 issue? Thanks for the comment.

Reply to
John Keiser

"John Keiser" hath wroth:

Oops. So much for my photographic memory. Sorry. |

formatting link
even have one of these routers (v4), but it's sitting in a pile waiting to go to the local thrift shop.

OK, so much for that theory.

I don't know. The default WPA renewal interval is set by the router at 3600 seconds (60 minutes). As you noted, it does not coincide with the 24 hour failure interval. Therefore, it's not a re-keying problem.

Does the wifes computer have any power save options or time on/off options enabled? There are several to check.

  1. The properties for the MN-510 under power saver.
  2. The Windoze Control Panel -> Power Options.
  3. BIOS "green" features for power save and timer on/off.

Re-reading the description, the failure sound like the machine went into hibernate mode, but didn't quite recover gracefully when it resumed. The wireless status is whatever it was before the machine went into hybernate, but the wireless adapter can no longer synchronize with the router. Try turning off hibernate under: Control Panel -> Power Options -> Hibernate and see if it run for 24 hours without problems.

Please note that I have a very dim view of the BEFW11s4 v4 router. Until recently, my home and neighborhood wireless system was using one. It would hang often (erratically), disconnect one user leaving the others running just fine, hang on streaming media, and generally drive me nuts. Power cycling the router was the only effective fix.

If you don't get any result tinkering with power save features, my next best (and more expensive) suggestion is to substitute something else for either the router or the MN-510. I don't know which one to replace as both are equally old. I guess the BEFW11s4 as I consider it a known (different) problem.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Hibernate was off but I did toggle the power switch under advanced properties for the MN-510 in Device Manager. [The power tab under general properties was already disabled.]

I know this is "dated" stuff but it works fine for our little world. I'm in the rural part of Oahu and didn't bother with security at all until recently when NetStumbler showed another network nearby [but no useable signal].

I'll give it a few days.

Thank you for you kind assistance.

Reply to
John Keiser

All has been good for the past 2 days. I'm assuming it was the second power switch under advanced settings which I had over-looked. Thanks, Jeff.

Reply to
John Keiser

"John Keiser" hath wroth:

Y'er welcome.

I forgot to suggest a simple test. Connect to your BEFW11S4 via wireless and unplug the MN-150. Wait a few seconds and then plug it back in. Does it re-connect normally and work as expected? I've noticed that some devices will do this successfully, while others will not. Based on very limited experience, I suspect that any USB device that cannot survive such a power cycle, also cannot survive a power save initiated power cycle. I haven't done any formal testing and have never even tried it comparing no encryption and WPA. If you have the time or interest, could you try the plug/unplug test with both no encryption and WPA to see what happens?

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Interesting.

Would not renew automatically or reconnect manually with WPA but no problem if unencrypted. [The task bar connectoid shows good status in both cases but can't get to the internet.]

Reply to
John Keiser

Wierd.

Ahah. That explains quite a bit. The IP stack and USB driver can recover properly from a power cycle, but not the WPA encryption supplicant/shim. It might be something inherent in the WPA encryption key exchange. I might also be something inherent in Microsofts implimentation of WPA.

That was quite illuminating. I'll try the same test on other USB devices and see if I can find a pattern. Thanks for running the test.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

The disconnect problem resurfaced after a few days. I viewed "hidden" devices in device manager and found a duplicate MS Broadband Adapter. I uninstalled all of them and started anew. So far [3 days] all if fine even with WPA enabled. Possible WinXP was confused by the other "hidden" adapter or there was some legacy settings I was unable to change without a complete reinstallation.

Reply to
John Keiser

"John Keiser" hath wroth:

Ummm... Try this experiment. Take your MN-510 USB device and try plugging it into a different USB port on the computah. See if the surplus device reappears. Methinks it will. Devices that are unplugged or disconnected show up as "hidden" devices.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Yes, you are correct.

Reply to
John Keiser

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