Linksys WAP 54G Drops Intermittently

The boss got a new laptop several months ago. It came with a wireless
network card, broadcom or something. I knew I was doomed as soon as he told
me about it.

I finally got around to putting in a Linksys 802.11g access point in our
office so he can use the damn thing.

He kept complaining that his e-mail would freeze up periodically, and that
he would couldn't get to the Internet.

I told him he was imagining things. Maybe it was the power. I told him
I'd get a better UPS for his office.


Well, the other day I put in some encryption because we've been running
naked these past few weeks. As soon as I did that, all hell broke loose.
The boss could not get on the network at all.

I bought my own wireless card, a Linksys 54g. Damned if I don't drop off
periodically.

I can set up a continuous ping, and I'll get maybe 100-200 replies. Then,
for no reason, I'll get 2 or 3 timeouts, and then suddenly I'll get about
10,000 destination host unreachables. And then, it starts coming back to
life with a couple of reply time outs. And then some good solid replies.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

I had a guy that works with me plug in an 802.11b card, and he got the same
thing.

Linksys tech support was less than worthless, intimating that the problem
lies with every piece of my equipment besides their stupid WAP. Which may
be, but they aren't very convincing.

Since it's happening to three different machines with three different cards,
I figured I must have a bad WAP.

So I went to the store and bought another one.

Still does the same thing.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be? I've got the WAP plugged
into a Cisco switch, and we pump everything through a PIX 515 firewall.

But the fact that it's regular and consistent worries me. It's as if the
WAP reboots itself every 10 minutes or so. But it's not, because I can stay
logged on to it through the management console.

Thanks

James Wilson wrote:
> The boss got a new laptop several months ago. It came with a wireless
> network card, broadcom or something. I knew I was doomed as soon as
> he told me about it.
<snipped>
>
> But the fact that it's regular and consistent worries me. It's as if
> the WAP reboots itself every 10 minutes or so. But it's not, because
> I can stay logged on to it through the management console.
>
> Thanks

Sounds like what I ran across.. Turned out one of the employees had a
cordless phone and headset in his cubicle that interefered with the network
(not continuous but once in a while). Turns out that there are a lot of
cordless devices that use the same spectrum as wireless networks and can
cause interference.

Just a hint, I keep a Kensington WiFi finder in my toolbox (totally useless
for finding WiFi, but great for finding interfernce on the same 2.4 band),
if the leds go on, you may have interference from Microwaves, Bad
flourescent lights, Pencil Sharpeners <-- bad power cord), alarm systems, PA
systems, etc, and one that really stumped me for a while, a wireless smoke
detector! (never seen one before, but yes, they make wireless ones so you
don't have to run wires thru brick walls etc)

Taking a moment's reflection, roahboah mused:
|
| WAP's just an encryption protocol, not a physical entity. So it's not
| WAP that's rebooting.

You are thinking of WEP. WAP stands for Wireless Access Point ... as in
the Linksys WAP54G.

Thanks to all for the ideas. Every once in a while I will hear interference
on the telephone or a radio that I have attributed to my cell phone. I
considered this as a possible source of interference, but thought, Nah.

Anyway, I'll look into interference sources and let you know what I find.

Thanks again.

On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 16:15:33 -0600, James Wilson spoketh

>Thanks to all for the ideas. Every once in a while I will hear interference
>on the telephone or a radio that I have attributed to my cell phone. I
>considered this as a possible source of interference, but thought, Nah.
>
>Anyway, I'll look into interference sources and let you know what I find.
>
>Thanks again.
>

Definitely look at the firmware version you are running as well. I had
major problems with at least a couple of the old ones, but the current
one (2.07) is rock-solid.


Lars M. Hansen
http://www.hansenonline.net
(replace 'badnews' with 'news' in e-mail address)

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> tall glass building full of 2.4GHz RF belching devices

The smokestacks of the Information Age?

On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 23:03:05 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) (Neill
Massello) wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> tall glass building full of 2.4GHz RF belching devices
>
>The smokestacks of the Information Age?

Yep. The surest sign of success is abuse and pollution. I guess
Wi-Fi is quite successful.

At one point, Netstumbler was picking up about 120(?) assorted access
points (50 of which had an SSID of "Linksys" and most of them on
Channel 6) from the rooftop. Using XP SP2, the stupid "show available
networks" would take literally forever to display a huge list of
available networks, and then start scanning immediately when the next
SSID would drift downwind. The good news is that most of the AP's had
some form of encryption enabled. Progress, I guess.

Don't forget the wi-fi blocking wallpaper:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6240

--
# 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

On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 13:07:05 -0800, "Peter Pan"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Sounds like what I ran across.. Turned out one of the employees had a
>cordless phone and headset in his cubicle that interefered with the network
>(not continuous but once in a while). Turns out that there are a lot of
>cordless devices that use the same spectrum as wireless networks and can
>cause interference.

Many of the 2.4GHz cordless phones use frequency hopping spread
spectrum which is required by the FCC rules to trash the entire 2.4GHz
band instead of just part of it as with DSSS. Some phones are now
coming out with DSSS which will not create interference. However, the
imbiciles in cordless phone marketing have invented the misleading
term "DSS". That's NOT direct sequence, but means "Digital Spread
Spectrum", which could be almost anything.

>Just a hint, I keep a Kensington WiFi finder in my toolbox (totally useless
>for finding WiFi, but great for finding interfernce on the same 2.4 band),
>if the leds go on, you may have interference from Microwaves, Bad
>flourescent lights, Pencil Sharpeners <-- bad power cord), alarm systems, PA
>systems, etc, and one that really stumped me for a while, a wireless smoke
>detector! (never seen one before, but yes, they make wireless ones so you
>don't have to run wires thru brick walls etc)

Are you sure? I thought it was advertised as detecting only valid hot
spots and would ignore non 802.11 devices? At least that's what the
manual says.

What's inside:
http://seattlewireless.net/~mattw/ph...inder/gallery/


--
# 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

James Wilson wrote:
> Thanks to all for the ideas. Every once in a while I will hear
> interference on the telephone or a radio that I have attributed to my
> cell phone. I considered this as a possible source of interference,
> but thought, Nah.
>
> Anyway, I'll look into interference sources and let you know what I
> find.
>
> Thanks again.

Actually, that is a possible source of interference. At one site, turned out
someone had a older nextel cellphone, and whenever it rang, the network
would get errors...

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>
> Are you sure? I thought it was advertised as detecting only valid hot
> spots and would ignore non 802.11 devices? At least that's what the
> manual says.
>
> What's inside:
> http://seattlewireless.net/~mattw/ph...inder/gallery/

That will teach to read and believe any advertising...I have it right here
in my hand "WiFi Finder, model 33063..
Kensington Technolgy Group www.kensington.com <--- comapany web site
address, it does NOT say what the ads do.

Just for fun, check out this review of several different devices (all priced
about the same)
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/pctel-w...er-review.html