WRT54G access point problems

On 9 Nov 2006 05:17:23 -0800, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in :

1. Possible RF interference. See causes and remedies in Fast Fixes below.
2. Peer-to-peer file sharing. Turn everything off to test.
3. Virus/trojan/spyware. Run good anti-virus and anti-spyware.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com hath wroth:

Can I assume that these two radios are on different channels (1, 6,

11)? It will work on the same channel but you'll have some mutual interference between them.

That's not a benchmark. I can't tell if it's bits or Bytes. I can't tell if you measuring the speed from the internet, from a wireless device, or from a local PC. I also can't tell how you obtained the numbers. In any case, it doesn't make any sense. 45KBytes/sec would be 360Kbits/sec which is far slower than I would expect from even the slowest wireless over the air data rate. At close range, you should get a 54Mbit/sec connection, which should give about 20-25MBits/sec TCP thruput measured from a CAT5 connected computer. If you don't have a benchmarking tool, try IPerf at:

don't use an internet speed benchmark web site to measure your wireless speed. The wireless should be MUCH faster than whatever you're using for internet access (unless you have a fiber connection).

That could be inteference from the other Vonage wireless router. Hard to tell from here. Are they physically seperated or right next to each other? Try isolating the WRT54G to some basement or location where there's little wireless junk. Ping the IP address of the WRT54G to see if it's working well. No need for an internet connection. It should have ping times of 1msec or less. Check the signal strength, signal to noise ratio, and connection speed as indicated by whatever you're using for a client computer.

Could you disclose the hardware version of the WRT54G? V5 and V6 had serious problems with the early versions of firmware. I'm not sure the later firmware versions really fixed everything. Some numbers please.

You're also making the assumption that this is an access point or wireless router problem. It could easily be a problem at the client end. Could you disclose what you're using for the client?

Hey Jeff,

Thanks a lot for your help, sorry for being ambigious before, and providing WRONG Information..SORRY! :(

My Access Point is not BEFW11S4 its BEFW11S4, a Wireless-B Broadband router! (which I think can be used as an access point though)

1. Both the access point and the router are using different channels, the WRTP54G is using Wireless Channel 9 and the BEFW11S4 uses Channel

10 (2.462 Ghz). However, both have the same SSID, I dont know how bad that will be, but I heard that if you are using one as an access point, then they both should have the same SSID.

As far as the distance between the two routers is concerned, they are about a 70-100 ft away, and on different floors, and since I'm in India, there are concrete walls and not wood.

There is however, a cordless phone next to the BEFW11S4, it works on

5.8Ghz though, so I doubt that would be giving me the problem.

1. About internet connectivity speed, I downloaded iperf, but when I do iperf -c 192.168.15.2 ; it throws me a connect failed: connection refused message, am I suppsed to do it any differently?

2. When I ping my BEFW11S4, at first it gave me 6ms, and then after repeated pinging it dropped to 1 ms

C:\\Documents and Settings\\Administrator>ping 192.168.15.2

Pinging 192.168.15.2 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.15.2: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=150 Reply from 192.168.15.2: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=150 Reply from 192.168.15.2: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=150 Reply from 192.168.15.2: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=150

Ping statistics for 192.168.15.2: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 5ms, Average = 2ms

C:\\Documents and Settings\\Administrator>ping 192.168.15.2

Pinging 192.168.15.2 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.15.2: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=150 Reply from 192.168.15.2: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=150 Reply from 192.168.15.2: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=150 Reply from 192.168.15.2: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=150

Ping statistics for 192.168.15.2: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 6ms, Average = 2ms

1. About the hardware, my PC is a Fujitsu Lifebook S7010D, which has the Atheros A/B/G inbuilt wireless card, hardware profile is pretty decent with centrino and 1 gb RAM.

The router is BEFW11S4 V4, with 1.50 as the Linksys Firmware.

1. My internet connection isnt like amazing, but its a 512Kbps DSL connection, and it seems to behave fine when I'm connected to the WRTP54G (Vonage) wirelessly or wired-ly. And gives me good speeds as such.

1. COnnecting to the BEFW11S4 wirelessly, I get excellent connectivity and it shows 11Mbps as my connectivity speed. Is BEFW11S4 a Wireless B router?

2. Another strange thing, is that even though pinging 192.168.15.2 gives me 1ms after a point, there are times when I'm navigating the admin setup using IE, and it starts showing me Page Not Found, which would technically mean it was not able to find http://192.168.15.2 , strange.

Thanks for all your help though!

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

"gravity" hath wroth:

Fast answer (because I'm late for a free lunch). It takes two to tango. Find another computer and plug it into the BEFW11S4. Run the server version of IPerf on it. Run the client version of IPerf on your laptop. Point IPperf on the laptop at the IP address of the server computer.

I used to use a BEFW11S4 v4. It would hang erratically, hang on streaming media regularly, refuse to connect some users while others worked fine, and failed some router exploit tests. It's not the firmware version.

Hey!

After reading posts and finding how crappy the BEFW11S4 is and how it always need a power cycle every few hours, I've shelved it and placed a proper WAP54G access point, things seem to be working fine and better now!

Thanks a bunch for all your help! :)

Jat> "gravity" hath wroth:

"gravity" hath wroth:

Bad news. I've had some versions of the WAP54G also hang on me. I have one pair of WAP54G v3.1 boxes sitting at a customers acting as a wireless bridge. The link is reliable but the bridges are not. Both ends will hang erratically. It's not an AC power issue as both are currently running on battery power. Strangely, the exact same units but at another customer, operated as a wireless access point at one end, and a client bridge mode at the other, work just fine with no hangs.

Also, there's no need to buy a dedicated access point. Any wireless router can be used as an access point by disabling the DHCP server and ignoring the WAN (internet) port. Hints are in the FAQ.