Wireless drops with NO notification

[kimiraikkonen]

Hello,
I have XP Home SP2 bundled with my notebook and my notebook has
Broadcom BCM4318 wi-fi adapter on it.
And i have US Robotics Wireless router. I'm having frequent wireless
drops which are not notified with in "taskbar" or in "event log".

For example, when wireless connection drops between router and
adapter, the wi-fi taskbar icon is still seemed as "connected" and
connection time counter contiunes to count seconds as well. Also i'm
using Broadcom's 3rd party wireless software with same drop-
notification-free symptom.

I tried plenty of workarounds to get rid of wi-fi drop with no
success; At first times i was thinking the wireless drops were because
of bad notebook or router positioning, then i brought notebook and
router into the same room with resulted same drop problem. Also i
tried all channels 1,6,11 with no help.

I tried these resulted with no help:

1-Moved router and notebook into the "same" room (signal strength
reported "perfect", signal level goes around -50 to -65dbi)

2-Disabled WZC(Wireless Zero Configuration), used Broadcom's native Wi-
fi utility.

3-Uninstalled-Reinstalled drivers of Wi-fi

4-Removed "my" cordless phone to have a test, but i cannot intervene
to my neighbour's wireless networks or devices(phones, ovens) as it's
their freedom of living.

***The only soultion to get rid of this frequent drop problem is to
click XP's "repair" connection button, or disabling - re-enabling
wireless connection brings wi-fi to life.

Any useful help will be aprreciated so much as last chance.

Regards...

 

[Barb Bowman]

do you have the most current firmware for the USR Router?
is the name of the wireless network/SSID unique (did you change it
from what it was when you received it)?
how many other wireless networks do you see in your environment?

can you define frequent a little bit more please? does this coincide
with anything (like transferring files)?

are there entries in Event Viewer that correspond to the time the
wireless drops? what are they?

Hello,
I have XP Home SP2 bundled with my notebook and my notebook has
Broadcom BCM4318 wi-fi adapter on it.
And i have US Robotics Wireless router. I'm having frequent wireless
drops which are not notified with in "taskbar" or in "event log".

For example, when wireless connection drops between router and
adapter, the wi-fi taskbar icon is still seemed as "connected" and
connection time counter contiunes to count seconds as well. Also i'm
using Broadcom's 3rd party wireless software with same drop-
notification-free symptom.

I tried plenty of workarounds to get rid of wi-fi drop with no
success; At first times i was thinking the wireless drops were because
of bad notebook or router positioning, then i brought notebook and
router into the same room with resulted same drop problem. Also i
tried all channels 1,6,11 with no help.

I tried these resulted with no help:

1-Moved router and notebook into the "same" room (signal strength
reported "perfect", signal level goes around -50 to -65dbi)

2-Disabled WZC(Wireless Zero Configuration), used Broadcom's native Wi-
fi utility.

3-Uninstalled-Reinstalled drivers of Wi-fi

4-Removed "my" cordless phone to have a test, but i cannot intervene
to my neighbour's wireless networks or devices(phones, ovens) as it's
their freedom of living.

***The only soultion to get rid of this frequent drop problem is to
click XP's "repair" connection button, or disabling - re-enabling
wireless connection brings wi-fi to life.

Any useful help will be aprreciated so much as last chance.

Regards...

--

Barb Bowman
MS Windows-MVP
Expert Zone & Vista Community Columnist
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/meetexperts/bowman.mspx
http://blogs.digitalmediaphile.com/barb/

 

[kimiraikkonen]

Hi Mr.Bowman,
However, i did not update the firmware of the router because of the
risk of crash and problems during/after update process and also
there's no fix information about wireless drop in firmware's change-
log of my router (USR9108) as you appreciate.

My SSID name is unique and i'm sure i'm the only computer on my wi-fi
network (checked via utility)

There are a lot of wireless networks around my building which are
visible by me and they use channels 1,6 and especially 11.

When the drop occurs, there's no event log, dialog bog, dialog
balloon, and there's no notification and that's why the topic's named
"with no notification". When the problem occurs, i cannot reach
anywhere including 192.168.1.1, which is my router's gateway page.

To have a test, when i'm experienced this wi-fi drop, i connected Cat5
cable to connect notebook to the router over cable and the internet is
fine over cable at the same time, and i checked router's "wireless
client list"to check if i'm really dropped, and the list shows i'm
dropped because i'm not listed in the list.

And yes, also while downloading drop happens, but it happens also when
connection is idle.(not being used, but connected)

I hope i explained enough clear.

If you want more info, i can give, i hope to solve the problem,
provided.

Thank you.

 

[Barb Bowman]

First, I'm definitely not a MR.

You list the channels around you and mention 1, 6, 11 but I can't
tell if you tried other channels even though they may overlap
(3,4,7,8 etc. ) How many networks are in your environment. A "lot"
means different things to different people.

Have you contacted USR support about your issue? You might want to
try that.

There is one extremely dense apartment complex here locally that has
so many 2.4 GHz networks that the only solution for one person was
to switch 802.11a.

Hi Mr.Bowman,
However, i did not update the firmware of the router because of the
risk of crash and problems during/after update process and also
there's no fix information about wireless drop in firmware's change-
log of my router (USR9108) as you appreciate.

My SSID name is unique and i'm sure i'm the only computer on my wi-fi
network (checked via utility)

There are a lot of wireless networks around my building which are
visible by me and they use channels 1,6 and especially 11.

When the drop occurs, there's no event log, dialog bog, dialog
balloon, and there's no notification and that's why the topic's named
"with no notification". When the problem occurs, i cannot reach
anywhere including 192.168.1.1, which is my router's gateway page.

To have a test, when i'm experienced this wi-fi drop, i connected Cat5
cable to connect notebook to the router over cable and the internet is
fine over cable at the same time, and i checked router's "wireless
client list"to check if i'm really dropped, and the list shows i'm
dropped because i'm not listed in the list.

And yes, also while downloading drop happens, but it happens also when
connection is idle.(not being used, but connected)

I hope i explained enough clear.

If you want more info, i can give, i hope to solve the problem,
provided.

Thank you.

--

Barb Bowman
MS Windows-MVP
Expert Zone & Vista Community Columnist
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/meetexperts/bowman.mspx
http://blogs.digitalmediaphile.com/barb/

 

[John Wunderlich]

Hello,
I have XP Home SP2 bundled with my notebook and my notebook has
Broadcom BCM4318 wi-fi adapter on it.
And i have US Robotics Wireless router. I'm having frequent
wireless drops which are not notified with in "taskbar" or in
"event log".

For example, when wireless connection drops between router and
adapter, the wi-fi taskbar icon is still seemed as "connected" and
connection time counter contiunes to count seconds as well. Also
i'm using Broadcom's 3rd party wireless software with same drop-
notification-free symptom.

I tried plenty of workarounds to get rid of wi-fi drop with no
success; At first times i was thinking the wireless drops were
because of bad notebook or router positioning, then i brought
notebook and router into the same room with resulted same drop
problem. Also i tried all channels 1,6,11 with no help.

I tried these resulted with no help:

1-Moved router and notebook into the "same" room (signal strength
reported "perfect", signal level goes around -50 to -65dbi)

2-Disabled WZC(Wireless Zero Configuration), used Broadcom's
native Wi- fi utility.

3-Uninstalled-Reinstalled drivers of Wi-fi

4-Removed "my" cordless phone to have a test, but i cannot
intervene to my neighbour's wireless networks or devices(phones,
ovens) as it's their freedom of living.

***The only soultion to get rid of this frequent drop problem is
to click XP's "repair" connection button, or disabling -
re-enabling wireless connection brings wi-fi to life.

Any useful help will be aprreciated so much as last chance.

Regards...

Two things to try:

In the Advanced settings for your wireless network card's driver (in
Device Manager) make sure you haven't allowed Windows to "turn off this
device to save power".

There's also this:
"The computer disconnects from a wireless network after random time
intervals in Windows XP"
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910387/en-us>

HTH,
John

 

[kimiraikkonen]

Two things to try:

In the Advanced settings for your wireless network card's driver (in
Device Manager) make sure you haven't allowed Windows to "turn off this
device to save power".

There's also this:
"The computer disconnects from a wireless network after random time
intervals in Windows XP"
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910387/en-us>

HTH,
John- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi John,
Of course, i confirmed "power save" is disabled with no help.

Indeed, i do not use WZC of Windows, so the MS link does not help.