Loosing clients connected to DWL-900AP+

I have a small network connecting three buildings to a fourth. On this
fourth I have a DWL-900AP+ and on each building there are small
networks (20, 12 and 8 workstations) connected to a Linksys WET11.

Sometimes the WET11 will just loose conectivity to the AP, most of the
times all together. What I have to do to get them back is to reboot
the AP (not the clients).

Because of this behavior, I assume that they are ok and that something
on the AP could be the reason.

I'm putting my money on the ADVANCED -> PERFORMANCE settings, assuming
that a change in configuration there could help me keep all clients
alive.

Any hints for settings on beacon interval, preamble (short or long) or
any other would be much appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

Luiz Lima

"Luiz Lima" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote...
> I have a small network connecting three buildings to a fourth. On this
> fourth I have a DWL-900AP+ and on each building there are small
> networks (20, 12 and 8 workstations) connected to a Linksys WET11.
>
> Sometimes the WET11 will just loose conectivity to the AP, most of the
> times all together. What I have to do to get them back is to reboot
> the AP (not the clients).
>
> Because of this behavior, I assume that they are ok and that something
> on the AP could be the reason.
>
> I'm putting my money on the ADVANCED -> PERFORMANCE settings, assuming
> that a change in configuration there could help me keep all clients
> alive.
>
> Any hints for settings on beacon interval, preamble (short or long) or
> any other would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks a lot.

Luiz, the 900 has a log which will indicate a recent reboot... I've seen
some firmware versions of the 900 reboot the AP under data loads, and not
significant ones either... If you are not using the SNMP/SYSLOG functions,
install a trap to capture the output, it will remotely notify you of
reboots and
system activity...

> Luiz, the 900 has a log which will indicate a recent reboot...
> I've seen some firmware versions of the 900 reboot the AP under
> data loads, and not significant ones either... If you are not
> using the SNMP/SYSLOG functions, install a trap to capture the
> output, it will remotely notify you of reboots and system activity...

Thanks for the comments. My problem, however, is not that the AP is
rebooting. My problem is that the clients (not all at the same time)
loose connection while the 900AP is still up. Then, I manually reboot
it (pressing APPLY on any screen on the web interface) and the
connection(s) which was(were) lost will resume.

Luiz Lima

"Luiz Lima" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
> > Luiz, the 900 has a log which will indicate a recent reboot...
> > I've seen some firmware versions of the 900 reboot the AP under
> > data loads, and not significant ones either... If you are not
> > using the SNMP/SYSLOG functions, install a trap to capture the
> > output, it will remotely notify you of reboots and system activity...
>
> Thanks for the comments. My problem, however, is not that the AP is
> rebooting. My problem is that the clients (not all at the same time)
> loose connection while the 900AP is still up. Then, I manually reboot
> it (pressing APPLY on any screen on the web interface) and the
> connection(s) which was(were) lost will resume.
>
> Luiz Lima

Do you have SSID disabled? I had a similar 900AP+ problem with intermittent
client connection loss with SSID disabled. Never lost connectivity with SSID
on. I gave up on turning off SSID and settled on MAC filtering and WEP. I am
in the middle of nowhere so I suspect I'm not at risk.
Bill

> Do you have SSID disabled?

You mean, if I have the SSID broadcast disabled? Yes, I do.

> I had a similar 900AP+ problem with intermittent client
> connection loss with SSID disabled. Never lost connectivity
> with SSID on.

I never even tried to turn it on. I don't think it's a very safe
option for me here.

> I gave up on turning off SSID and settled on MAC filtering
> and WEP. I am in the middle of nowhere so I suspect I'm not
> at risk.

Well, I'm right in the middle of everywhere... Bad news for me, I
suppose. I had to change the AP with an old RoamAbout AP2000. I'll see
what happens.

I hope DLINK can come with a fix, as soon as they realize there's a
problem. You would LOL if you read the reply their tech support sent
me...

Thanks a lot for your comments.

Luiz Lima

Luiz Lima <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> > I had a similar 900AP+ problem with intermittent client
> > connection loss with SSID disabled. Never lost connectivity
> > with SSID on.

> I never even tried to turn it on. I don't think it's a very safe
> option for me here.

Why not? Turning it off buys you nothing special at all. Except
problems like this with windows clients that is.

Better you should use only D-Link clients that can do their
proprietary 4X mode (in other words cards with the TI ACX100
chip in them), at least for now. Eventually the people doing
the driver for that will get it done..

Billy Y..

My DLink cards gave no end of trouble 'til I turned off the 4x
"feature". Solid, now.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Luiz Lima <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
>
>>>I had a similar 900AP+ problem with intermittent client
>>>connection loss with SSID disabled. Never lost connectivity
>>>with SSID on.
>
>
>>I never even tried to turn it on. I don't think it's a very safe
>>option for me here.
>
>
> Why not? Turning it off buys you nothing special at all. Except
> problems like this with windows clients that is.
>
> Better you should use only D-Link clients that can do their
> proprietary 4X mode (in other words cards with the TI ACX100
> chip in them), at least for now. Eventually the people doing
> the driver for that will get it done..
>
> Billy Y..

whoever9262(sickoffakeMSmessages) <"whoever9262(sickoffakeMSmessages)"@yahoo.com> writes:

> My DLink cards gave no end of trouble 'til I turned off the 4x
> "feature". Solid, now.

Hmm... It's working fine for me, although I don't allow connects
from non-4X cards either (restricted by MAC address). I have the
rev C APs and v3.06 firmware.

Billy Y..

>>> I had a similar 900AP+ problem with intermittent client
>>> connection loss with SSID disabled. Never lost connectivity
>>> with SSID on.

>> I never even tried to turn it on. I don't think it's a very safe
>> option for me here.

> Why not? Turning it off buys you nothing special at all. Except
> problems like this with windows clients that is.

How equally safe can be telling everyone what is my SSID and NOT
telling everyone what is my SSID? I'm not a wireless expert, but I
assume that not broadcasting SSIDs is safer as it requires someone to
know the SSID first hand before even trying to get into my wireless
LAN.

I also wrote to D-Link about this problem. Their response makes all
the sense, when read in the light of these posts here. They said that
the 900AP+ disconnect idle clients, but that they should be able to
find the AP again once they wanted to transmit and that the AP would
find them if they needed to receive. However, when configured not to
broadcast the SSID, I noticed that the AP does not appear on Linksys'
site survey (Orinoco AP's, for example, appear, but the SSID is
blank).

So, my conclusion is that since the AP doesn't appear on the WET11's
site survey, somehow the WET11 can't find it again after being
disconnected by the AP. OTOH, the AP can't find it either.

Well, guess I should have gone all the way with D-Link products...
When I used the 900AP+ with the 810+ bridges, that never happened... I
stopped using them because they won't work with a LAN connected to
them, just with single computers. Instead of buying WET11s perhaps I
should have bought other 900AP+s to work as bridges.

Luiz Lim