Intermittent connection - is it my card or my router?

[dorancat]

Hi,

I just picked up a Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, which comes with an
internal
wireless card, Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card Rev 3.6. My router at
home
is an older one, an SMC 7004VWBR. Had it for a couple of years, its
only
802.11b (i think).

The SMC had worked well before with an older dell laptop, but it had an
SMC
PCMCIA wireless card to talk to the router.

With the new dell, I upgraded the SMC firmware so that I could use WPA
encryption. That all seemed to go ok, and I turned on encryption and
all
is good, right?

Kinda....

Occasionally, while surfing, the Dell loses its inetrnet connection.
Firefox shows that
page not found error. Checking the wireless info, I will have an
excellent signal to the
router and no indication of anything wrong. By right-clicking on the
wireless icon and
selecting 'Repair', the problem is fixed and back to surfing, etc.
This happens at least
once or twice a day. And happens at seemingly random times during
normal use of
the laptop.

When this happens, I do know that the router is still flowing info from
my ISP cause
I have checked my desktop, which is hard-wired to the router, and it
still has a connection
to the outside.

Does this sound more like a router or wireless card problem? Any
suggestions would
be appreciated.

Thanks,
DoranCat

 

[Tony Hwang]

Hi,

I just picked up a Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, which comes with an
internal
wireless card, Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card Rev 3.6. My router at
home
is an older one, an SMC 7004VWBR. Had it for a couple of years, its
only
802.11b (i think).

The SMC had worked well before with an older dell laptop, but it had an
SMC
PCMCIA wireless card to talk to the router.

With the new dell, I upgraded the SMC firmware so that I could use WPA
encryption. That all seemed to go ok, and I turned on encryption and
all
is good, right?

Kinda....

Occasionally, while surfing, the Dell loses its inetrnet connection.
Firefox shows that
page not found error. Checking the wireless info, I will have an
excellent signal to the
router and no indication of anything wrong. By right-clicking on the
wireless icon and
selecting 'Repair', the problem is fixed and back to surfing, etc.
This happens at least
once or twice a day. And happens at seemingly random times during
normal use of
the laptop.

When this happens, I do know that the router is still flowing info from
my ISP cause
I have checked my desktop, which is hard-wired to the router, and it
still has a connection
to the outside.

Does this sound more like a router or wireless card problem? Any
suggestions would
be appreciated.

Thanks,
DoranCat

Hi,
Logic says, you have two things changed. Laptop and firmware.
So what do you think?

 

[dorancat]

Well...

I knew 2 things had changed. I was wondering if anyone had an
experience like...

"Oh yeah, I upgraded my firmware and all hell broke loose."

or

"Lots of probs with the Dell internal wireless card. I found it only
plays well with router Brand X."

Anything like that?

Thanks,
DoranCat

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

I just picked up a Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, which comes with an
internal
wireless card, Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card Rev 3.6.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspn_640m?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

My router at
home
is an older one, an SMC 7004VWBR. Had it for a couple of years, its
only
802.11b (i think).

It's 802.11b only.

The SMC had worked well before with an older dell laptop, but it had an
SMC
PCMCIA wireless card to talk to the router.

With the new dell, I upgraded the SMC firmware so that I could use WPA
encryption. That all seemed to go ok, and I turned on encryption and
all
is good, right?

Right. WPA is good.

Kinda....

Occasionally, while surfing, the Dell loses its inetrnet connection.
Firefox shows that
page not found error. Checking the wireless info, I will have an
excellent signal to the
router and no indication of anything wrong.

Let's see if I got this right. It disconnects *WHILE* surfing? Not
while it's idle or not being used? There's no relation with the
laptop going into hibernate or power save mode? If it disconnected
while idle, I would have you check the power save settings on the
laptop to make sure it's not shutting down. There's also a possible
issue with 802.1x authentication, where it disconnects every XXXX
seconds when re-negotiating for a new key. That would be a driver
issue on your Dell 1390 PCI Express card. However, having it
disconnect *WHILE* you're surfing implies interference from some other
wireless device. See the FAQ at:
<http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi#Interference>
for a list of possible culprits. The easiest thing to do first is
change the channel (1, 6, or 11). Relocate the router to some place
that does not have a view of the city. Lay off the microwave dinners.
Trade in the 2.4GHz cordless phone for a 900MHz or 5.8GHz model. Etc.

Is there any pattern to the disconnects?

By right-clicking on the
wireless icon and
selecting 'Repair', the problem is fixed and back to surfing, etc.

Try this instead:
start -> run -> cmd <enter>
ipconfig /release
wait about 10 seconds
ipconfig /renew
ipconfig
Did you get an IP address? Does it now work? If so, methinks the
DHCP lease has expired and the renewal failed. The sloppy way to fix
that is to just extend the lease time in the SMC router settings.

This happens at least
once or twice a day. And happens at seemingly random times during
normal use of
the laptop.

Not good. That sounds like genuine interference. You can have a very
strong signal, but if the interference is equally strong, it will
eventually disconnect.

When this happens, I do know that the router is still flowing info from
my ISP cause
I have checked my desktop, which is hard-wired to the router, and it
still has a connection
to the outside.

Does this sound more like a router or wireless card problem? Any
suggestions would
be appreciated.

Incidentally, did you update the Dell 1390 driver to the latest
revision?

I would guess(tm) that it's neither and sounds more like interference
or possibly power management setting for the 1390 card. The wireless
cards all tend to favor the higher 802.11g speeds with 2nd class
service offered to 802.11b devices. If the Dell 1390 settings offer
something like an "802.11b only" setting, I would try that. Definitely
try a different RF channel (1, 6, or 11). Otherwise, methinks it's
time to go shopping for an 802.11g wireless router.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

"Oh yeah, I upgraded my firmware and all hell broke loose."
or
"Lots of probs with the Dell internal wireless card. I found it only
plays well with router Brand X."
Anything like that?

Have you tried the usual Google searches? I found this:
http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap/2005-May/010200.html
which might be related. It seems someone was having a bit of a
problem with WPA on the SMC 7004VWBR. Try searching for:
SMC 7004VWBR with sucks crap junk hate etc
or something similar. Amazing what you can find.

 

[dorancat]

Hey Jeff,

Just wanted to to thank you for all your help and suggestions. Tried a
bunch of them,
updated drivers, changed the channel, etc, and still was having probs.
So I junked
my SMC and picked up a Linksys "G" router. No probs since, plus, of
course,
the "G" speeds are much better than the "B".



Thanks again.

Cheers,
DoranCat