wlan0 stops intermittently

[thesun]

I just got a new computer and moved my old system into a different room. To my great surprise, plugging in a Dell Wireless PCI wireless N card (1525 WLAN) worked out of the box...or so I thought. The moment I rebooted the system, there it was, it found my wifi network, and I added the passcode...and seconds later I was surfing the net.

Yay!

But now I'm noticing that while it surfs just fine for about a minute or two, it keeps dropping the connection. It picks the connection up again, works for a few more page requests, and then drops it. With SSH, I can connect, go to a directory, do a command line or two...then it suspends for a minute...two...three perhaps...then (if my ssh doesn't time out!) it resumes again and works just fine.

Anyone know what I might do here? I would love to have this computer as part of the network but don't want to drill holes through my house to add another eth line.

Many thanks...

---------- Post added at 01:32 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 01:31 PM CDT ----------

Oh, one additional thing: In the Network Manager it seems there are two entries for my wlan0 -- one that's called "auto_Mynetwork" and the other that's just "wlan0" The latter is the one that's active, while the other is Inactive. No clue if that's useful to any wlan gurus out there, but I thought maybe it was something that's confusing the system into thinking it has two wifi cards or something.

[CSchwangler]

Do you have any other wireless devices attached to the machine or in the same room, e.g. wireless mouse or keyboard? Some wireless pieces may disturb the wlan card.

[thesun]

Well, there's a bunch. Wireless phone, wireless notebook computer. But whether they're on or off, the issue is the same.

[Darr247]

What brand/model/version is the wireless router or AP that the Dell is connecting to?
Is there any logging available on that device?

[thesun]

Don't know about logging...it's a Netgear 300N. Doesn't seem to have any problems with the other computers (one Dell Mini with Ubuntu and an old XP notebook). Nor are there any problems if I plug in the eth0 cable directly. Only the wireless wlan0 link has this issue.

[trangkutehd]

thanksssssssssss


______________________________

[Darr247]

Netgear's support site says:
No matching products found, please check the model number and retry.

On the Products->For Home pages there are 14 different 802.11n models listed, but none of them have the sequence "300N" in their model designation.

[thesun]

I don't have the box but on the router itself it says Netgear Wireless N 300 Router WNR2000. So the latter is perhaps what's needed.

I have an old Dlink router that I could easily swap in and if the same problem were still occurring, might that mean that the issue is not with the router but rather with the wlan0 card or the quirks of the FC11 drivers?

Thanks for all out there who are pondering this. I've essentially decided I'll probably hardwire a new eth0 cable through the house rather than continue messing with the wifi. But I'd love to fix it before I pull out the Dewalt and have at it. ;-)

[PatMcLJr]

Yea, try to figure it out, it might help a ton of folks with the same problem, like me.

I am still looking for a solution but my router quit a few days ago so I'm hoping the new one will help the problem. I did have a little better luck when I disabled stuff I wasn't using in the bios, but my device is a usb adapter so the improvement could be related to that.

It sure was nice not to be tied to that wire while it was working. It would go for either minuets or hours and I could never tell what the problem was.

Good Luck,
Pat Jr.

[leigh123linux]

Originally Posted by trangkutehd

thanksssssssssss


______________________________

Banned!

[thesun]

I will put this aside for the moment. If I can get it better diagnosed I'll post more info. Otherwise it may just be that hardwiring is the way to go.

[Darr247]

Well, since you didn't specify a version for the router, I'll presume version 1.
Have you applied the firmware upgrade available for version 1?
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11895

Have you tried a hard reset of the router?
That involves
1) hold in the reset button for 30 seconds
2) unplug it while continuing to hold in the reset button
3) after 10 seconds plug the power back in (still continuing to hold the reset button)
4) after another 30 seconds, release the reset button and let the router boot up.
5) Finally do another power cycle on the router without the reset button and when it boots up re-enter your custom settings... e.g. WPA2-AES passphrase, ISP settings (if any), et cetera.

When removing power, you don't need to pull the wallwart from the outlet... you can just unplug the cord from the back of the router, count to 10 and plug it back in.

Since the DW1525 is Atheros-based, you could try
# yum install ath_info
Then you should be able to run
$ ath_info
and possibly find out more details about that Dell adapter.

Though the output from
# lspci | grep -i atheros
should give enough info to see if it's on the supported list for the ath5k/ath9k drivers that I believe are installed by default.

Anyway, the DLink unit may well work better with that adapter, since many DLinks use Atheros chipsets. While interoperability has improved greatly since the early days of wireless, there are still some adapters/routers that work better together than with others (and it's not necessarily that they work best only in-brand, either).

[PatMcLJr]

hummm
must be "something in the water"
same box I had f13 on same hardware same router same same same
put puppy5.0 on it, wireless has been on and flawless all day played the internet radio station (BigR 80 metal) all day with no drops.

Might be the box too, puppy is much better suited for the older computer. I have to save the new puppy is very nice. puppy 5.1 is looking to be a very nice disto. For me it works better then the Gparted disk did, boots fast, yea has some frustrations, like how do I get my webcam ... opps, thread hijack! eject eject eject ...

Pat Jr.