Linksys BEFW11S4- Cannot Change Channel

My BEFW11S4 has worked very well for about two years now. We just got
new neighbours and the wireless link started getting flaky. Sure
enough, there was a new wireless network in the neighbourhood. This
has happened before, and to solve it in the past I just accessed the
router (192.168.1.1, etc.) from my browser and altered the Channel
Number in the Wireless section of Setup.

This time, however, when I changed the Channel number and clicked on
"Apply" I did not get the usual message telling me that the changes
have been downloaded successfully. NOTHING happened. If I clicked to
go to another page and then went back to Setup, the settings were back
to the old settings. The router would not take the changes.

- tried cycling power- no good
- tried the reset button- no good
- tried resetting to factory defaults- lost my SSID and WEP settings-
the only thing that worked was MAC cloning, which was a blessing,
since that is what my cable modem wants to see! So now I had internet
access, but still no ability to alter settings
- tried updating my version 2 router to firmware 1.45.10- this worked
but still no joy on changing settings

Support was not a major help. I was going to try all of this anyway
but managed to waste some time in their chat room and on the phone.
Newsgroups and Google had no answers and did not even mention the
problem.

- Has this happened to anyone out there?
- How did you fix it? Right now it smells like a hardware/software
malfunction of the router itself. I can still get on the internet and
"talk" to the router. After factory default reset and firmware
upgrade, what is there?

My always on 24/7 365 11S4 version 1 router went out a couple of months
back. It still worked as a wire/wireless switch which I had reconfigured it
to be prior to plugging it into my WatchGuard FW appliance and ran in that
mode for a few months. Yeah it still worked in that capacity but I could no
longer get to any admin screen off of 192.168.1.1 nor could I do a hard
reset anymore. It was just locked in that configuration but it still had a
little life /functionality as a switch. When the wireless part died, I
finally unplgged the thing and tossed it in the trash and moved on. ;-)

Duane

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 11:14:38 -0500, Ron Ciren <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>My BEFW11S4 has worked very well for about two years now. We just got
>new neighbours and the wireless link started getting flaky. Sure
>enough, there was a new wireless network in the neighbourhood. This
>has happened before, and to solve it in the past I just accessed the
>router (192.168.1.1, etc.) from my browser and altered the Channel
>Number in the Wireless section of Setup.
>
>This time, however, when I changed the Channel number and clicked on
>"Apply" I did not get the usual message telling me that the changes
>have been downloaded successfully. NOTHING happened. If I clicked to
>go to another page and then went back to Setup, the settings were back
>to the old settings. The router would not take the changes.
>
>- tried cycling power- no good
>- tried the reset button- no good
>- tried resetting to factory defaults- lost my SSID and WEP settings-
>the only thing that worked was MAC cloning, which was a blessing,
>since that is what my cable modem wants to see! So now I had internet
>access, but still no ability to alter settings
>- tried updating my version 2 router to firmware 1.45.10- this worked
>but still no joy on changing settings
>
> Support was not a major help. I was going to try all of this anyway
>but managed to waste some time in their chat room and on the phone.
>Newsgroups and Google had no answers and did not even mention the
>problem.
>
>- Has this happened to anyone out there?
>- How did you fix it? Right now it smells like a hardware/software
>malfunction of the router itself. I can still get on the internet and
>"talk" to the router. After factory default reset and firmware
>upgrade, what is there?

Wow, nice mess. I have a BEFW11S4v4 on my desk. Works well enough
with a few bugs.

It would be interesting to know if only the channel settings are not
sticking, or if other settings on the same page have a similar
problem.

Apparently only the wireless settings are not being held. I've
actually seen problems like this, but it wasn't the router. It was
the cache in the browser insisting on displaying the expired web page
instead of displaying the current changes to the web page. The
changes were being applied, but the browser would display the page
from the browser cache, not from the router.

Instead of fixing the problem, it would be interesting to see first if
I'm correct. Setup your system to change the wireless settings as
before. Change the channel and click apply. Restart the router
(power cycle). Then, using a wireless client monitoring program or
Netstumbler, see what channel your router is really using. If my
guess(tm) is correct, then it should have changed, even though the web
page shows that it has not changed.

I also had trouble configuring Linksys devices using alternative
browsers. The major culprits were Opera and old Netscrape 4.7x
versions. Early also Mozilla releases did strange things. However, I
don't recall if any were cache issues. More like Javascript or HTML
bugs. Sorry, it's been a long time, so I don't recall the exact
problems. I do vaguely recall where clicking on some button did
nothing, as if the button wasn't there. I also found I couldn't use
the web based firmware upgrade with Netscape or Opera. Anyway, when I
reluctantly switched to Internet Exploder 6, things worked.

Firmware release notes:
http://www.linksys.com/download/vert...s4v3.2_ver.txt

If the browser cache isn't the problem, try another experiment. Some
similar (BEFSR41) Linksys equipment requires that the reset button be
stomped and held for a very long time to obtain a proper settings
reset. I usually hold it down for 60 seconds, which is probably
excessive, but is guaranteed. Try another grand reset, this time with
the button held down for a full minute. After the reset, wait for the
router to settle down, then pull the power plug for about 15 seconds,
plug it back in, and then do the configuration thing. The idea is to
guarantee that its really reset. I don't know if another reset will
help, but it can't hurt.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Hello, Jeff. Thank you for your rapid response. Here is what I have
found...
>
>It would be interesting to know if only the channel settings are not
>sticking, or if other settings on the same page have a similar
>problem.

Nothing that I do on the Setup page has any effect. As I said, only
the MAC Cloning is functional, and that is on another page.

> Setup your system to change the wireless settings as
>before. Change the channel and click apply. Restart the router
>(power cycle). Then, using a wireless client monitoring program or
>Netstumbler, see what channel your router is really using. If my
>guess(tm) is correct, then it should have changed, even though the web
>page shows that it has not changed.

I tried that with the SSID instead of the Channel number. I do not
have Netstumbler or any other such program but reasoned that the SSID
should change if this idea was correct. The SSID was unchanged so I
think that would mean that this is not the trouble.


>Firmware release notes:
> http://www.linksys.com/download/vert...s4v3.2_ver.txt
>
>If the browser cache isn't the problem, try another experiment. Some
>similar (BEFSR41) Linksys equipment requires that the reset button be
>stomped and held for a very long time to obtain a proper settings
>reset. I usually hold it down for 60 seconds, which is probably
>excessive, but is guaranteed. Try another grand reset, this time with
>the button held down for a full minute. After the reset, wait for the
>router to settle down, then pull the power plug for about 15 seconds,
>plug it back in, and then do the configuration thing. The idea is to
>guarantee that its really reset. I don't know if another reset will
>help, but it can't hurt.

The long reset did not work.

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:03:39 -0500, Ron Ciren <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>I tried that with the SSID instead of the Channel number. I do not
>have Netstumbler or any other such program but reasoned that the SSID
>should change if this idea was correct. The SSID was unchanged so I
>think that would mean that this is not the trouble.

Well, so much for that idea. I hate to tell you this, but methinks
the flash ram in the router is toast. The fact that some parts of the
setup are functional indicates that it's still working, but no with
every memory location. It's easily replaced if you have SMT soldering
tools, but methinks you might have to either preload it with the
firmware, or wire in the JTAG port to load the necessary firmware.
I'll see if I can determine where the TFTP server firmware is hiding,
but if it's in the flash chip, you'll have a problem. If you're
really lucky, the flash chip will be in a socket. Open and see for
thyself.

>The long reset did not work.

Bummer.

One last desperate suggestion. I've seen the web based firmware
update screw up once (and only once) on a BEFW11S4v3.2. No matter
what I did, I couldn't get the stupid firmware to load correctly. So,
I fired up my handy TFTP client and used that to load the .bin file.
That worked. Since parts of the puzzle are working, it's possible
that there may be firmware errors. It's a long shot because I know it
was screwed up before you upgraded the firmware, but I can't think of
anything better to try.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff:

It turns out that one of your earlier ideas is the actual solution to
the problem. It is the browser, Internet Explorer, that is the
culprit.

I noticed atypical operation on certain functions of IE after loading
Service Pack 2 recently. For instance, the "Find on this page"
feature stopped working. Other SP2 problems seem to include a System
Restore problem.

Suspicious after your post, I downloaded Firefox and tried to access
the router- instant success! Everything works.

Thank you for the time that you spent on my troubles.

Ron

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 11:48:26 -0500, Ron Ciren <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

> It turns out that one of your earlier ideas is the actual solution to
>the problem. It is the browser, Internet Explorer, that is the
>culprit.

I'll add another notch on my keyboard.

>I noticed atypical operation on certain functions of IE after loading
>Service Pack 2 recently. For instance, the "Find on this page"
>feature stopped working. Other SP2 problems seem to include a System
>Restore problem.

Oh-oh. Explorer should be running properly even if you don't use it
as it shares many libraries and functions with the operating system.
You might wanna try MS's recommended repair ordeal before doing
something drastic like rolling back SP2. SP2 is a good thing to have.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318378/EN-US/

>Suspicious after your post, I downloaded Firefox and tried to access
>the router- instant success! Everything works.

Firefox is nice. Be sure to check for updates (It's at 1.0.1 now) and
you might wanna set the downloads to ask you where to dump the files
instead of dropping them all over the desktop by default.

>Thank you for the time that you spent on my troubles.

Y'er welcome.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Oh-oh. Explorer should be running properly even if you don't use it
> as it shares many libraries and functions with the operating system.
> You might wanna try MS's recommended repair ordeal before doing
> something drastic like rolling back SP2. SP2 is a good thing to have.
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318378/EN-US/

In the early days of IE, I found that reinstalling IE would fix all manner
of Windows problems. I think that it was the first of the smart bundled
products, where an installer looked at the system and then loaded other
components. It seems that "SP2" has taken the title of overall fixer
now. It just gets a little painful to reinstall all the updates after
reinstalling SP2. I keep them all on a CD for easier access.

Unraveling the 318378 page, it looks like applying SP2, even if it is
already applied, is the thing to do.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 19:39:09 +0000 (UTC),
(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> Oh-oh. Explorer should be running properly even if you don't use it
>> as it shares many libraries and functions with the operating system.
>> You might wanna try MS's recommended repair ordeal before doing
>> something drastic like rolling back SP2. SP2 is a good thing to have.
>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318378/EN-US/

>In the early days of IE, I found that reinstalling IE would fix all manner
>of Windows problems. I think that it was the first of the smart bundled
>products, where an installer looked at the system and then loaded other
>components. It seems that "SP2" has taken the title of overall fixer
>now. It just gets a little painful to reinstall all the updates after
>reinstalling SP2. I keep them all on a CD for easier access.
>
>Unraveling the 318378 page, it looks like applying SP2, even if it is
>already applied, is the thing to do.

Yep, agreed. SP2 fixes lots of things. I think you can re-apply it
on top of the existing installation without first having to roll it
back. I would also install Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta 1 and run a
virus scanner to make sure the machine is stable. Lots of installs
blow up if spyware, worms, or a virus are present.

Another trick that works with only some versions of Windoze is:
Control Panel -> Add and Remove Software -> Internet Exploder SP1
Select "repair" from the menu that appears when clicking IE SP1.
Seems to fix lots of weird problems.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS