My Wireless Problems and How I Fixed Them

[Lythandra]

My Wireless Problems and How I Fixed Them


Netgear MR814v2 Wireless Router
Netgear MA 521 Card

It started out with everything working perfectly then it seemed that the computer would toss a coin to decide if it would let me connect to the internet or not.

The card would do one of the following:
-connect perfectly
-not connect at all
-would connect to the router but not receive any packets.
-sometimes it would connect then drop connection and repeat this every few seconds. Very annoying!!


I first went thru the basics making sure I had everything set up correctly on the router and laptop. I am not new to computers and networks so I felt comfortable that I wasn’t screwing anything up with my settings.

I stuck the router about 2 feet back and above my computer to eliminate any electrical interference it may have been getting from the computer.

I had the most current drivers for my wireless card already.

I did find a firmware update for the router which I installed.

I made sure that the OS (XP Home) was updated with everything.

Then I found out about this XP update which is a wireless update (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;826942) which I installed. Even after all this I was still having problems.

Lastly I found this thread (http://forums.practicallynetworked.com/showthread.php?threadid=2753) about MS’s automatic wireless configuration. After turning this off I have had zero problems so far. Knock on wood!!!

Anyway, hope this all helps someone so you don’t yell at the computer like I was doing and getting your girlfriend concerned about your mental health.

[Greenstead]

Interesting experience - thanks for the post.

Just to add some context to this type of problem.
Ideally we use only products which are tested and proven with the operating system (say XP). Microsoft test hardware and drivers and when satisfied will tag the equipment compliant, or ' designed for XP'. They include the driver in XP and you don't install any vendor drivers. This of course takes time.

The way these wireless cards and drivers develop seems to go like this:
- All vendors rush their product to market to establish a presence which means they have a card which has essentially beta firmware and driver and is not fully operating system compliant (though it will work with some limitations). Their utility program supplements for the lack of compatibity and is necessary to use it. This is currently the state of many 11g products.
- As time goes on (too much time for us poor users) the vendor refines the product and software and issues a string of upgrades for firmware and drivers and utilities - the MR routers from Netgear are a good example of this. You only know of these upgrades if you trawl their website.
- Eventually (say 1 year) the vendor gets it right and submits it to M$ and it gets compliance approval. (You can see the M$ list here)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/catalog/default.aspx?subid=21&xslt=categoryl3&pgn=2e229976-d4a6-429d-b790-5d64a54acbc1

The MA512 seems to still be at stage 2, which is a poor show for an 802.11b product. Netgear do not even list it as XP compatible. So I'm not surprised you find it needs the utility. Generally if you use the utility you should disable the XP wireless configuration. For its predecessor the MA401 it is compatible and you don't need the utility and should use XP wireless configuration.
(This is not to knock Netgear especialy, all wireless vendors are in the same boat and us users encourage them wanting more bandwidth and performance).

I guess what I am saying is that many wireless products are released early (and we can't resist buying them) and there is no black and white rule for these cards and you need to try all the possibilites and see what works for you.

Thanks again for the feedback on the MA521.

[Lythandra]

That makes sense. Netgear is cheap too thus further explaining why they are not compliant yet. Anyway, I'm a newbie wireless guy and just wanted to put my experience on here for other newbie people.

Everything is still working fine so I will officially say that it is fixed!!!!!


*Knock On Wood Again*