Zyxel P660HW - reboot problems

Hi

Just acquired this gadget. It's been rebooting itself once or twice a
day.

Initially I thought it was overheating - I had an ATA box sitting on
top of it. But moving it to a free airflow area didn't improve things.

Then I noticed the wireless LAN had defaulted to Channel 6, as had some
other wireless server (not mine) visible on the PC's wireless adapter.
Changing to Channel 13 seems, touch wood, to have fixed things.

I've googled on Zyxel reboots - several hits, but not obvious what
causes there might have been.

1. Anyone else seen wireless interference cause reboots? How could
you tell? Is it technically feasible for the router to get so confused
by the presence of a competing server on the same wireless channel that
it would just give up and die?

2. I have firmware V 3.40 (AC1.7). As far as I can make any sense of
the Zyxel website, that's the latest version for "P-660HW-T1", which is
how my box is labelled. But there's also a "P660HW-T1 v2", with newer
(better??) firmware V 3.40(APR.1). And no explanation that I can find
of the implications of the "v2" (new hardware?), and whether or not I'd
stand any chance of getting the new firmware to run on what I'm
guessing is older hardware. Has anyone else got the T-shirt for this
stuff, please?

TIA

--
Roger Morton

"Roger Morton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:bYCtkgKJhk2dEkhmN65KwQ@LIVING...
> Hi
>
> Just acquired this gadget. It's been rebooting itself once or twice a
> day.
>
> Initially I thought it was overheating - I had an ATA box sitting on
> top of it. But moving it to a free airflow area didn't improve things.
>
> Then I noticed the wireless LAN had defaulted to Channel 6, as had some
> other wireless server (not mine) visible on the PC's wireless adapter.
> Changing to Channel 13 seems, touch wood, to have fixed things.
>
> I've googled on Zyxel reboots - several hits, but not obvious what
> causes there might have been.
>
> 1. Anyone else seen wireless interference cause reboots? How could
> you tell? Is it technically feasible for the router to get so confused
> by the presence of a competing server on the same wireless channel that
> it would just give up and die?
>
> 2. I have firmware V 3.40 (AC1.7). As far as I can make any sense of
> the Zyxel website, that's the latest version for "P-660HW-T1", which is
> how my box is labelled. But there's also a "P660HW-T1 v2", with newer
> (better??) firmware V 3.40(APR.1). And no explanation that I can find
> of the implications of the "v2" (new hardware?), and whether or not I'd
> stand any chance of getting the new firmware to run on what I'm
> guessing is older hardware. Has anyone else got the T-shirt for this
> stuff, please?

Hi Roger,

Mine is labelled P-600HW-61, so not sure this is the same model,
but it has been completely stable for a year or more with 5+ other
local WiFi networks visible at times on various (sometimes changed)
channels. Firmware is v3.40(PE.11) 05/22/2006, though, so looks
like your model may have a later revision board.
A firmware bug in the routine used to deal with channel clashes could
cause a reboot, freeze, etc., so you may be ok until someone else
tries using ch13 - worth checking ch13 at the time, if it happens again.
I assume you've done all the basic security and changed default
modem password etc? It has great security and logging features,
if you suspect a wifi hack, so can then use MAC addresses, turn-off
dhcp and use fixed IPs etc to lock it down a bit harder.

Cheers,
--
Rob

In <fmaagg$536$1$(E-Mail Removed)>, Oldish Git wrote:

>
> Hi Roger,
>
> Mine is labelled P-600HW-61, so not sure this is the same model,
> but it has been completely stable for a year or more with 5+ other
> local WiFi networks visible at times on various (sometimes changed)
> channels. Firmware is v3.40(PE.11) 05/22/2006, though, so looks
> like your model may have a later revision board.
> A firmware bug in the routine used to deal with channel clashes could
> cause a reboot, freeze, etc., so you may be ok until someone else
> tries using ch13 - worth checking ch13 at the time, if it happens
> again.
> I assume you've done all the basic security and changed default
> modem password etc? It has great security and logging features,
> if you suspect a wifi hack, so can then use MAC addresses, turn-off
> dhcp and use fixed IPs etc to lock it down a bit harder.
>

Thanks

It's locked down pretty well, but I'm slowly convincing myself the
problem is more to do with unreliable WEP, or WAP, sync - 128-bit WEP
and all the WAP combinations I've tried seem to result in reboots after
an hour or so. Only the 64-bit WEP that we were using before moving
home seems to be stable.

One of the very wierd early symptoms of this, before the router
reboots, is that the PCs on the WLAN lose internet connectivity. They
can't even ping the router, which I guess might make sense if they've
lost security sync; but they *can* still ping each other - the router
seems to be still forwarding ICMP packets but not responding to them
itself. That's got me completely foxed.....

--
Roger Morton

I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when
(E-Mail Removed) (Roger Morton) opened his gob and said:

>Only the 64-bit WEP that we were using before moving
>home seems to be stable.

You might as well not bother. I have found Zyxel very responsive and
I'd give their tech support a shout.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.