NETGEAR MR814v2/MA521 connection drops

Hi,

I have recently purchased the NETGEAR MR814v2 wireless DSL-Router and the
MA521 PC-Card for my notebook.
My wired setup consists of two PCs (100 MBit, running XP Pro) and a DSL
modem, which runs flawlessly (both internet and wired LAN connectivity.)

However, when I use my notebook (XP Pro) to connect to the router using the
WLAN card I experience (more or less) frequent connection drops. Usually it
takes only a few seconds until the connection is established again and the
signal strength is almost always 'very good' or 'excellent'. Anyway I
noticed that the NETGEAR utility's signal and link bars change quite often
between around 70 and 95 percent and are not really stable. I don't know if
this is normal behavior. Also but more rarely I get timeouts or high latency
when trying to ping devices on my LAN.

I tried changing channels and it appeared to me that the connection got more
stable, but I still have these short connection drops and ping timeouts. I
also tried setting the card to a fixed speed of 5.5 MBit instead of full
auto (usually it set the speed to 11 MBit in auto mode, sometimes going back
to 5.5), but that didn't resolve the issue either. The distance between the
access point and client is below 20 meters, so I guess that shouldn't cause
the problem.

Router is configured to channel 1, broadcast SSID, MAC-address restriction
enabled and 64-Bit-WEP enabled
NIC is set to 5.5 MBit (default was auto), power saving off, transmit power
100% (default was auto), preamble auto, fragmentation threshold disabled,
rts/cts threshold disabled

I'm using the newest drivers for the NIC, firmware version of the router is
5.01.

I'm pretty much at the end of my rope and would be thankful for any
advice...

Hi Tony,

If you have Net zero service enabled, perhaps you can try to disable
it.

I was having a similiar problem and this worked for me.

HTH Hemlock

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 19:08:42 +0100, "Tony Montana" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I have recently purchased the NETGEAR MR814v2 wireless DSL-Router and the
>MA521 PC-Card for my notebook.
>My wired setup consists of two PCs (100 MBit, running XP Pro) and a DSL
>modem, which runs flawlessly (both internet and wired LAN connectivity.)
>
>However, when I use my notebook (XP Pro) to connect to the router using the
>WLAN card I experience (more or less) frequent connection drops. Usually it
>takes only a few seconds until the connection is established again and the
>signal strength is almost always 'very good' or 'excellent'. Anyway I
>noticed that the NETGEAR utility's signal and link bars change quite often
>between around 70 and 95 percent and are not really stable. I don't know if
>this is normal behavior. Also but more rarely I get timeouts or high latency
>when trying to ping devices on my LAN.
>
>I tried changing channels and it appeared to me that the connection got more
>stable, but I still have these short connection drops and ping timeouts. I
>also tried setting the card to a fixed speed of 5.5 MBit instead of full
>auto (usually it set the speed to 11 MBit in auto mode, sometimes going back
>to 5.5), but that didn't resolve the issue either. The distance between the
>access point and client is below 20 meters, so I guess that shouldn't cause
>the problem.
>
>Router is configured to channel 1, broadcast SSID, MAC-address restriction
>enabled and 64-Bit-WEP enabled
>NIC is set to 5.5 MBit (default was auto), power saving off, transmit power
>100% (default was auto), preamble auto, fragmentation threshold disabled,
>rts/cts threshold disabled
>
>I'm using the newest drivers for the NIC, firmware version of the router is
>5.01.
>
>I'm pretty much at the end of my rope and would be thankful for any
>advice...
>