Multi Vendor wireless problems

I'm going nuts trying to configure a wireless network. Every time I
think I have something figured out, something else goes wrong. Before
I moved house, all the 100BaseT stuff was working fine, and wireless
was just a nicety - so if it didn't work 100% it wasn't a problem.
Now I'm in a rental house, so a wired network isn't an option.

I hope someone can point me in the right direction, and that the
solution will be of use to multiple people.

The configuration is like this. On the wired side, I have an
ActionTec DSL modem (configured as a bridge) connected to a SonicWall
firewall (set up as 192.168.1.1). The LAN side of the firewall is
connected to a LinkSys BEFS11W1 Wireless AP / Switch. The AP is
supposed to be configured so that the WAN side is ignored. I say
'supposed to be' because I'm now wondering if this is where the
problem lies rather than the NICs which was what I first believed.
The LinkSys has nothing connected to the WAN socket, the SonicWall
connected to one of the 4 ports, and the only wired computer to the
another. I started out with the Linksys without WEP, then once things
appeared to be working I switched it on, and then everything got
worse.

One wireless connected computer (a laptop) has an Orinoco Gold card.
At one point, this computer could connect to the network, but only
intermittently. Intermittently meant that the wireless connection
would disappear after a couple of minutes. This laptop is used at
work and at home (on an NT network where things have been changing),
so I wasn't totally surprised when the wireless connection suddenly
stopped being intermittent and became solid.

This is when my recollection get fuzzy. I thought that I would try
turning on security, and as I recall - it worked, but the intermittent
connection came back. Around the same time was when I tried adding a
D-Link 520+ card to a PC in another room. I got the intermittent
connections (meaning it puts the disconnected network icon in the
system tray) every minute or less.

It doesn't seem to make any difference if the IP address is static or
dynamic. For the D-Link, it makes no difference if WEP is on or off,
but for the Orinoco it does seem to matter. If WEP is on, connections
are intermittent. If WEP is off, connections are solid.

Does anyone have any explanations or fixes? As I said, it is driving
me crazy.

Thanks
Mike

the bottom line is use all the same vendor products then you have great
support for any problems,
using multi-vendor products theres no mutual support, these products have
not been tested with each other, and therefore its down to you, choose one
vendor, get it working and stick with them "if it works leave it alone"



"Mike Pritchard" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) m...
> I'm going nuts trying to configure a wireless network. Every time I
> think I have something figured out, something else goes wrong. Before
> I moved house, all the 100BaseT stuff was working fine, and wireless
> was just a nicety - so if it didn't work 100% it wasn't a problem.
> Now I'm in a rental house, so a wired network isn't an option.
>
> I hope someone can point me in the right direction, and that the
> solution will be of use to multiple people.
>
> The configuration is like this. On the wired side, I have an
> ActionTec DSL modem (configured as a bridge) connected to a SonicWall
> firewall (set up as 192.168.1.1). The LAN side of the firewall is
> connected to a LinkSys BEFS11W1 Wireless AP / Switch. The AP is
> supposed to be configured so that the WAN side is ignored. I say
> 'supposed to be' because I'm now wondering if this is where the
> problem lies rather than the NICs which was what I first believed.
> The LinkSys has nothing connected to the WAN socket, the SonicWall
> connected to one of the 4 ports, and the only wired computer to the
> another. I started out with the Linksys without WEP, then once things
> appeared to be working I switched it on, and then everything got
> worse.
>
> One wireless connected computer (a laptop) has an Orinoco Gold card.
> At one point, this computer could connect to the network, but only
> intermittently. Intermittently meant that the wireless connection
> would disappear after a couple of minutes. This laptop is used at
> work and at home (on an NT network where things have been changing),
> so I wasn't totally surprised when the wireless connection suddenly
> stopped being intermittent and became solid.
>
> This is when my recollection get fuzzy. I thought that I would try
> turning on security, and as I recall - it worked, but the intermittent
> connection came back. Around the same time was when I tried adding a
> D-Link 520+ card to a PC in another room. I got the intermittent
> connections (meaning it puts the disconnected network icon in the
> system tray) every minute or less.
>
> It doesn't seem to make any difference if the IP address is static or
> dynamic. For the D-Link, it makes no difference if WEP is on or off,
> but for the Orinoco it does seem to matter. If WEP is on, connections
> are intermittent. If WEP is off, connections are solid.
>
> Does anyone have any explanations or fixes? As I said, it is driving
> me crazy.
>
> Thanks
> Mike

Let me be sure I understand. Without WEP everything works, right? You said
you only turned on WEP when everything appeared to be working.

If that's true, then WEP is your problem. Are you sure that all wifi
devices - including AP - are configured with exactly the same key, and
exactly the same key length (usual choices 40/64, 128, 152)? Don't get
fooled by "hex" vs. "ascii" key entry formats. I'd do everything in ASCII,
and remember that 40/64 keylength requires 5 characters, 128 requires 13
characters, and 152 requires 15 characters.

If it's not WEP, then check to be sure your client connections are only
being managed by one utility. A common problem is that the vendor provides a
config utility which configures the adapter and manages network scanning,
but Windows also has a utility that does the same. Be sure you're using only
one - either disable the Windows connection management or the vendor's
utility. Windows management can be disabled by double-clicking the
two-computers icon in the system tray, clicking Properties, clicking the
Wireless Networks tab, and deselecting "Use Windows to configure my wireless
settings".

"Mike Pritchard" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) m...
> I'm going nuts trying to configure a wireless network. Every time I
> think I have something figured out, something else goes wrong. Before
> I moved house, all the 100BaseT stuff was working fine, and wireless
> was just a nicety - so if it didn't work 100% it wasn't a problem.
> Now I'm in a rental house, so a wired network isn't an option.
>
> I hope someone can point me in the right direction, and that the
> solution will be of use to multiple people.
>
> The configuration is like this. On the wired side, I have an
> ActionTec DSL modem (configured as a bridge) connected to a SonicWall
> firewall (set up as 192.168.1.1). The LAN side of the firewall is
> connected to a LinkSys BEFS11W1 Wireless AP / Switch. The AP is
> supposed to be configured so that the WAN side is ignored. I say
> 'supposed to be' because I'm now wondering if this is where the
> problem lies rather than the NICs which was what I first believed.
> The LinkSys has nothing connected to the WAN socket, the SonicWall
> connected to one of the 4 ports, and the only wired computer to the
> another. I started out with the Linksys without WEP, then once things
> appeared to be working I switched it on, and then everything got
> worse.
>
> One wireless connected computer (a laptop) has an Orinoco Gold card.
> At one point, this computer could connect to the network, but only
> intermittently. Intermittently meant that the wireless connection
> would disappear after a couple of minutes. This laptop is used at
> work and at home (on an NT network where things have been changing),
> so I wasn't totally surprised when the wireless connection suddenly
> stopped being intermittent and became solid.
>
> This is when my recollection get fuzzy. I thought that I would try
> turning on security, and as I recall - it worked, but the intermittent
> connection came back. Around the same time was when I tried adding a
> D-Link 520+ card to a PC in another room. I got the intermittent
> connections (meaning it puts the disconnected network icon in the
> system tray) every minute or less.
>
> It doesn't seem to make any difference if the IP address is static or
> dynamic. For the D-Link, it makes no difference if WEP is on or off,
> but for the Orinoco it does seem to matter. If WEP is on, connections
> are intermittent. If WEP is off, connections are solid.
>
> Does anyone have any explanations or fixes? As I said, it is driving
> me crazy.
>
> Thanks
> Mike

I think there may be some other problems with WEP that I'll need to
figure out later, but right now I'm seeing problems even without WEP
and I'll try to get things sorted out in the simple case first.

I think I omitted to write that my laptop with the Orinoco is running
Windows XP. I think the earlier problems that cleared up were because
of the point you made about multiple utilities. I believe that when I
removed or turned off the Lucent utility I stopped having the
intermittent problem. Right now, this system seems to be running fine
- using Windows to configure the wireless network settings.

The other system is running Windows 2000 Professional, and has the
DLink 520+. I've done some hardware juggling in case there were
problems related to PCI config. Uninstalled all the wireless
software, removed the wireless card and the 100BaseT card, restarted,
shut down, reinstalled the wireless card, restarted and then
reinstalled wireless software.

Things are now somewhat better in that the off part of the cycle seems
to last only a short time, and - perhaps as a result - I'm now able to
connect to the Internet and access other parts of the network from
this machine. Every 10 seconds the network icon shows the bubble with
'network cable unplugged' and then it immediately connects again.

I don't think this momentary disconnection can be due to multiple
utilities, because I don't think Win2000 has the ability to control
network devices from the OS.

I'm wondering if the problem is due to an AP in a neighbor's house -
near enough to where the computer with the Dlink is located such that
the signal strength is similar. After the reinstall I'm able to use
the Dlink utility to see this, and to confirm with the laptop, that
there is a Netgear AP out there.

If the presence of the other AP is causing the Dlink to lock onto it
briefly, I don't really know what to do next. There doesn't seem to
be any way to change the configuration to stop it trying. Setting up
WEP should stop us being able to connect at a higher level, but I
don't know if it would stop this problem. Would a different 802.11b
card with different utilities be a good idea? I don't think WinXP is
an option on this machine. I don't think I can do much to make my AP
more dominant, but I can try moving it around a few feet, or even
getting the super antenna from Radio Shack.

Any other ideas greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Mike


"gary" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<hGbsb.62$(E-Mail Removed)>. ..
> Let me be sure I understand. Without WEP everything works, right? You said
> you only turned on WEP when everything appeared to be working.
>
[snip]
>
> If it's not WEP, then check to be sure your client connections are only
> being managed by one utility. A common problem is that the vendor provides a
> config utility which configures the adapter and manages network scanning,
> but Windows also has a utility that does the same. Be sure you're using only
> one - either disable the Windows connection management or the vendor's
> utility. Windows management can be disabled by double-clicking the
> two-computers icon in the system tray, clicking Properties, clicking the
> Wireless Networks tab, and deselecting "Use Windows to configure my wireless
> settings".
>