Netgear WGR614 - Wireless mode causes SOME web to be inaccessible

I just installed a WGR614v6 at my fiance's office at work. She has a
basic DSL modem running into the WAN port of this router, and then two
wired connections - one to an desktop, one to her laptop. All is well
when we're wired.

However, when we use the wireless connection for the laptop she cannot
access *some* of the websites she uses. If we plug in the wire,
everything works again.

While this looks purely to be a network configuration issue, the fact
that it works when wired has be absolutely puzzled. I've disabled all
firewalls and changed the wireless channel, but still running WSA-PSK.

Suggestions, please.

Dave

(E-Mail Removed) hath wroth:

>I just installed a WGR614v6 at my fiance's office at work. She has a
>basic DSL modem running into the WAN port of this router, and then two
>wired connections - one to an desktop, one to her laptop. All is well
>when we're wired.
>
>However, when we use the wireless connection for the laptop she cannot
>access *some* of the websites she uses. If we plug in the wire,
>everything works again.
>
>While this looks purely to be a network configuration issue, the fact
>that it works when wired has be absolutely puzzled. I've disabled all
>firewalls and changed the wireless channel, but still running WSA-PSK.
>
>Suggestions, please.

Does she have any form of "safe surfing", "parental controls",
"anti-phishing", or "anti-spam" software installed under Windoze XP
that blocks access to known spam, porno, phishing, etc sites? Some of
these (specifically Norton Internet Security) are configured by
connection type which means you could get different site access
blockages depending on whether you're connected via wired or wireless
even though they go to the same router IP address. Try disabling the
safe surf stuff and see if that helps.

If this isn't possible, try a wireless connection with a different
laptop to identify whether it's a router or laptop issue.

Incidentally, this problem appears as an issue with the WGR614 series
of routers ocassionally:
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.internet.wireless/browse_frm/thread/927fb72cc620f9d7/ad6469698ab2072b?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en#ad6469698a b2072b>
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.internet.wireless/browse_frm/thread/4b6ea1abc5d4961d/1a0eb789fa9f6006?lnk=st&q=&rnum=5&hl=en#1a0eb789fa 9f6006>
The problem is sometimes causes by either out of date router firmware
or that it required a hardware (paper clip) reset to clear out some
garbage in its NVRAM.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> (E-Mail Removed) hath wroth:
>
> >I just installed a WGR614v6 at my fiance's office at work. She has a
> >basic DSL modem running into the WAN port of this router, and then two
> >wired connections - one to an desktop, one to her laptop. All is well
> >when we're wired.
> >
> >However, when we use the wireless connection for the laptop she cannot
> >access *some* of the websites she uses. If we plug in the wire,
> >everything works again.
> >
> >While this looks purely to be a network configuration issue, the fact
> >that it works when wired has be absolutely puzzled. I've disabled all
> >firewalls and changed the wireless channel, but still running WSA-PSK.
> >
> >Suggestions, please.
>
> Does she have any form of "safe surfing", "parental controls",
> "anti-phishing", or "anti-spam" software installed under Windoze XP
> that blocks access to known spam, porno, phishing, etc sites? Some of
> these (specifically Norton Internet Security) are configured by
> connection type which means you could get different site access
> blockages depending on whether you're connected via wired or wireless
> even though they go to the same router IP address. Try disabling the
> safe surf stuff and see if that helps.
>
> If this isn't possible, try a wireless connection with a different
> laptop to identify whether it's a router or laptop issue.
>
> Incidentally, this problem appears as an issue with the WGR614 series
> of routers ocassionally:
> <http://groups.google.com/group/alt.internet.wireless/browse_frm/thread/927fb72cc620f9d7/ad6469698ab2072b?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en#ad6469698a b2072b>
> <http://groups.google.com/group/alt.internet.wireless/browse_frm/thread/4b6ea1abc5d4961d/1a0eb789fa9f6006?lnk=st&q=&rnum=5&hl=en#1a0eb789fa 9f6006>
> The problem is sometimes causes by either out of date router firmware
> or that it required a hardware (paper clip) reset to clear out some
> garbage in its NVRAM.

Thanks. The firmware is already up-to-date, and the laptop is a new
Dell Latitude 620 with the Broadcom 1490 minicard. Unless there is
some extra protective software configured, to my knowledge it's
vanilla. Maybe I should install Firefox in case it's
Microsoft-centric.

I will reset the modem to see if that helps.

Also, Dell discusses something about not handling SSIDs properly in a
dual-band setup. I will also try setting the router to 802.11g only
instead of b and g.

Thanks for the tips.

Dave

On 11 Dec 2006 16:53:57 -0800, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Thanks. The firmware is already up-to-date, and the laptop is a new
>Dell Latitude 620 with the Broadcom 1490 minicard.

That's a Dell 1490 or a Broadcom BCM4310.

You may want to also look at this:
http://its.psu.edu/alerts/alert-203

>Unless there is
>some extra protective software configured, to my knowledge it's
>vanilla. Maybe I should install Firefox in case it's
>Microsoft-centric.

It's possible. Look under the IE6 or IE7 security settings at:
Tools -> Internet Options -> Security -> Restricted Sites
and see if there are any sites listed.

>I will reset the modem to see if that helps.

Not the modem. Reset the WGR614 router.

>Also, Dell discusses something about not handling SSIDs properly in a
>dual-band setup. I will also try setting the router to 802.11g only
>instead of b and g.

Yeah, I've seen something like that with some dual band laptops. If
the access point is a dual band access point, and has the same SSID on
both the 802.11g and 802.11a sides, then the client sometimes gets
confused as to which side to use. However, the WGR614 is only
802.11b/g and should not have this problem.



--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 (E-Mail Removed)
# http://802.11junk.com (E-Mail Removed)
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On 11 Dec 2006 16:53:57 -0800, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>
> >Thanks. The firmware is already up-to-date, and the laptop is a new
> >Dell Latitude 620 with the Broadcom 1490 minicard.
>
> That's a Dell 1490 or a Broadcom BCM4310.

There you go, thanks.

> You may want to also look at this:
> http://its.psu.edu/alerts/alert-203

Thank you I will update the drivers, etc. I checked last night and her
laptop software drivers all date from about 12months ago. Sheesh, it
was built last month.

> >Unless there is
> >some extra protective software configured, to my knowledge it's
> >vanilla. Maybe I should install Firefox in case it's
> >Microsoft-centric.
>
> It's possible. Look under the IE6 or IE7 security settings at:
> Tools -> Internet Options -> Security -> Restricted Sites
> and see if there are any sites listed.

All clear. IE6.

> >I will reset the modem to see if that helps.
>
> Not the modem. Reset the WGR614 router.

Yes, sorry I was thinking of the router.

> >Also, Dell discusses something about not handling SSIDs properly in a
> >dual-band setup. I will also try setting the router to 802.11g only
> >instead of b and g.
>
> Yeah, I've seen something like that with some dual band laptops. If
> the access point is a dual band access point, and has the same SSID on
> both the 802.11g and 802.11a sides, then the client sometimes gets
> confused as to which side to use. However, the WGR614 is only
> 802.11b/g and should not have this problem.

Oh, 'dual band' only means 802.11a/g, and not 802.11 b/g?

In any case, I found that Dell mentions this router in their
knowledgebase: http://tinyurl.com/y7mwo2 I don't have everything in
front of me, but that doc appears to disable WEP passphrase security,
which we're not running (using WSA-PSK at the moment).

Thanks for your help - I now have a full list of things to inspect next
time I make the trip to her office to help.

Dave

(E-Mail Removed) hath wroth:

>Thank you I will update the drivers, etc. I checked last night and her
>laptop software drivers all date from about 12months ago. Sheesh, it
>was built last month.

Chuckle. I did a new Lenovo T60 last night (yawn). Delivered at
midnight for a European vacation. The Thinkvantage utilities, which
included the wireless drivers, required about 170Mbytes of
downloading, which included two rather scarey flash RAM updates. The
out of box experience was not very good considering this took about 2
hours (including the usual Windoze updates).

>> Yeah, I've seen something like that with some dual band laptops. If
>> the access point is a dual band access point, and has the same SSID on
>> both the 802.11g and 802.11a sides, then the client sometimes gets
>> confused as to which side to use. However, the WGR614 is only
>> 802.11b/g and should not have this problem.
>
>Oh, 'dual band' only means 802.11a/g, and not 802.11 b/g?

802.11b and g are both 2.4GHz. 802.11a is 5.8Ghz.
The Dell 1490 will do all of these thus making it a "dual band"
wireless card. I guess it could also be called "triple mode" but I
don't wanna go there.

>In any case, I found that Dell mentions this router in their
>knowledgebase: http://tinyurl.com/y7mwo2 I don't have everything in
>front of me, but that doc appears to disable WEP passphrase security,
>which we're not running (using WSA-PSK at the moment).

(I had to tell the above URL that I had a Latitude D620 before it
would display anything.)

That's quite a laundry list of Dell versus Netgear problems. The
unintelligible gibberish about the WEP key really means that Dell had
discovered that there are incompatibilities between different
manufacturers implimentations of converting an ASCII WEP key to a Hex
WEP key. This is a very common problem, but usually ignored by
vendors because it's only a problem with compatibility with different
vendors, and they don't support other vendors products. I'm amazed
that Dell would even mention it, and disgusted by the unintelligible
explanation. Anyway, that's not your problem.

>Thanks for your help - I now have a full list of things to inspect next
>time I make the trip to her office to help.

Ok, good luck.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Dec 12, 1:03 pm, Jeff Liebermann <j...@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us>
wrote:
> dgeesa...@gmail.com hath wroth:

Jeff, I did update the drivers with the latest software from dell, and
the wireless connectivity dropped to zero.

So then I uninstalled it, and was left with only the windows wireless
support. (It was using a slightly more featureful utility from
Dell/Broadcom). Voila, everything works now on all wireless networks.

Thanks for your time,

David

(E-Mail Removed) hath wroth:

>On Dec 12, 1:03 pm, Jeff Liebermann <j...@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us>
>wrote:
>> dgeesa...@gmail.com hath wroth:
>
>Jeff, I did update the drivers with the latest software from dell, and
>the wireless connectivity dropped to zero.
>
>So then I uninstalled it, and was left with only the windows wireless
>support. (It was using a slightly more featureful utility from
>Dell/Broadcom). Voila, everything works now on all wireless networks.

Cool. I just went through that exercise on an HP laptop for a
customer. Broadcom wireless card. (I forgot the model numbers). It
had some early version of the driver and client utility. I updated
the driver but not the client utility when everything started working
weird. For example, the wireless on/off button would allow me to turn
off the wireless, but not on. I eventually realized that the driver
and client utility (or whatever it's called) had to go together with
the same version. I downloaded version 4.x of the driver and the
Broadcom utilities, and everything worked just fine. Kinda nifty
looking interface.

In addition, I found that in the properties for the driver, were a
bunch of settings that I thought were only in Cisco and Intel Proset.
I can now control how aggressively the client sticks to a single
access point (for roaming), and SNR thresholds. Unfortunately, I
didn't have time to explore, tinker, and test.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558