New wireless network adapter problems.

G

Gordie

Hi all,

Just installed a Trendnet TEW-423PI wireless adapter and the mouse is now
showing delay/"sticking" effects. Also get a "vibrato" audio effect
sometimes. I have checked the driver and believe I have the most updated
version.
I am running XP Home SP3, RAM 1.5 GHz , CPU 864 MHz. and the adapter
communicates with a wireless router that is located in another room that is
one story up in my house. This problem only started when I added the
adapter. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

Gordie said:
Hi all,

Just installed a Trendnet TEW-423PI wireless adapter and the mouse is now
showing delay/"sticking" effects. Also get a "vibrato" audio effect
sometimes. I have checked the driver and believe I have the most updated
version.
I am running XP Home SP3, RAM 1.5 GHz , CPU 864 MHz. and the adapter
communicates with a wireless router that is located in another room that
is one story up in my house. This problem only started when I added the
adapter. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Sounds like a bad driver. Try downloading an updated driver from the
Trendnet site.
 
E

Elmo

Gordie said:
Hi all,

Just installed a Trendnet TEW-423PI wireless adapter and the mouse is now
showing delay/"sticking" effects. Also get a "vibrato" audio effect
sometimes. I have checked the driver and believe I have the most updated
version.
I am running XP Home SP3, RAM 1.5 GB , CPU 864 MHz. and the adapter
communicates with a wireless router that is located in another room that is
one story up in my house. This problem only started when I added the
adapter. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

According to a Trendnet search result, that's a PCI card. From what
I've seen, wireless cards conflict with sound cards, in some instances,
anyway.. on the three computers I've seen with this problem, a second
and third PCI device did varying degrees of the same malady, varying
from immediate freezes after a restart, to chatter when the sound card
was used.

Since your system seems to be one with that problem, I'd suggest a USB
wireless device. You could try a different sound card, of course.
 
G

Gordie

Elmo: That's very interesting...I only need to be wireless now because I had
to move the comp to a different room in the house (guests coming) but I'll
go back to the original arrangement once that is over so I'll probably just
tolerate it until then.
Thought I would share this though....called Trendnet tech support and the
guy suggested I *downgrade* to SP2 as there were fewer problems with this
product and that Service Pack....I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Thanks for your help.
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

I suggest you cry. If this is the best that Trendnet can do then they should
go out of business. Windows XP SPs above 2 have a long and stable history.
If the Trendnet adapter fails to work then the problem clearly rests with
Trendnet. They should get off their backsides and fix their product.
 
P

Paul

Pegasus said:
I suggest you cry. If this is the best that Trendnet can do then they
should go out of business. Windows XP SPs above 2 have a long and stable
history. If the Trendnet adapter fails to work then the problem clearly
rests with Trendnet. They should get off their backsides and fix their
product.

Ancient hardware requires ancient solutions :) At least, that is
what a "CPU 864 MHz" tells me.

Enter the BIOS, check for:

PCI Latency Timer [32]

On one of my old systems, I had to adjust this a lot, until I finally
determined my motherboard and chipset were a sack of crap. I tried [16],
[24],[32]. On later systems, [32] seemed to work fine. When you want
to win hard drive benchmarking contests, you set it to [64] for
maximum PCI bus unfairness. Sound cards suffer from fairness problems.
The lower you make this setting, the better for the sound card. If
you drop the setting too low, PCI bus efficiency is severely reduced,
making the computer like molasses on a cold winter day.

This one helps with sound problems too (specifically when the sound
card is on the PCI bus).

Delayed Transaction [Enabled]

The description for that feature reads...

"When set to Enabled, this feature frees the PCI bus when the CPU is
accessing 8-bit ISA cards. This process normally consumes about 50-60
PCI Clocks without PCI delayed transaction."

But that isn't all it does (i.e. the computer might not have any "ISA cards").
When the computer is accessing slow storage devices off the Southbridge,
that prevents bus hogging as the system waits for the Southbridge to
acknowledge bus cycles made to it.

My favorite test for the Delayed Transaction fix, was to listen
to the sound Windows makes just as the desktop appears. At that
point in time, there is usually ferocious disk activity, at the
same time as the Windows theme is playing. If you got sound stuttering
at that point in time, sometimes the Delayed Transaction [Enabled]
would fix it.

Paul
 
G

Gordie

Paul:

Looked around in the BIOS and saw that Delayed Transaction was enabled, but
couldn't find an adjustable value for PCI Latency Timer (there is also no
term in the menu that is " PCI Latency Timer"). What I did see was PNP/PCI
Configuration and when that is highlighted the description says IRQ
settings, Latency Timers etc. but alas there is no submenu that I could
adjust. There is something called PCI/ VGA Palette Snoop which I tried
enabling on a whim but no change.
Thanks for the suggestion and if you think of anything else please let me
know.


Paul said:
Pegasus said:
I suggest you cry. If this is the best that Trendnet can do then they
should go out of business. Windows XP SPs above 2 have a long and stable
history. If the Trendnet adapter fails to work then the problem clearly
rests with Trendnet. They should get off their backsides and fix their
product.

Ancient hardware requires ancient solutions :) At least, that is
what a "CPU 864 MHz" tells me.

Enter the BIOS, check for:

PCI Latency Timer [32]

On one of my old systems, I had to adjust this a lot, until I finally
determined my motherboard and chipset were a sack of crap. I tried [16],
[24],[32]. On later systems, [32] seemed to work fine. When you want
to win hard drive benchmarking contests, you set it to [64] for
maximum PCI bus unfairness. Sound cards suffer from fairness problems.
The lower you make this setting, the better for the sound card. If
you drop the setting too low, PCI bus efficiency is severely reduced,
making the computer like molasses on a cold winter day.

This one helps with sound problems too (specifically when the sound
card is on the PCI bus).

Delayed Transaction [Enabled]

The description for that feature reads...

"When set to Enabled, this feature frees the PCI bus when the CPU is
accessing 8-bit ISA cards. This process normally consumes about 50-60
PCI Clocks without PCI delayed transaction."

But that isn't all it does (i.e. the computer might not have any "ISA
cards").
When the computer is accessing slow storage devices off the Southbridge,
that prevents bus hogging as the system waits for the Southbridge to
acknowledge bus cycles made to it.

My favorite test for the Delayed Transaction fix, was to listen
to the sound Windows makes just as the desktop appears. At that
point in time, there is usually ferocious disk activity, at the
same time as the Windows theme is playing. If you got sound stuttering
at that point in time, sometimes the Delayed Transaction [Enabled]
would fix it.

Paul
 

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