HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and the
router and loacting the router at the master socket.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very
unresponsive, mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...

Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing
100% signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the
router!) - and (only?) 60 - 80% link quality.
The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..

There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Thanks for any advice / experience
Adrian

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:12:51 +0000, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC)
snip
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Don't know those cards, are they using the WiFi frequencies around
2.5GHz? If so there are only 3 channels that don't mutually interfere
with each other (1, 6 and 11 IIRC). See if you can find a channel
that has the least number of other (visible) devices on it. In an
urban area you may well find every channel chocker block with stuff
and there will be stuff you won't be able to see with your LAN kit
like video senders etc.

Cables work reliably and will be quicker unless you have a 10BaseT
LAN rather than 100BaseT, even the the 10BaseT could out perform many
wireless links. Oh and don't forget security...

--
Cheers
Dave.

"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...
HI Folks

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!


In a word.. yes, I would.

Use some homeplugs if you need data where is it not that easy to cable Cat5
to.

Adrian Brentnall
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 09:12

HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and the
router and loacting the router at the master socket.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very
unresponsive, mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...

That sounds like a Windows issue. The WIFI going tits up will not cause
those symptoms per-se, unless:

a) you are running a remote screen over WIFI (eg VNC, rdesktop, Citrix).

b) You have a server on the other end of the WIFI link that the PC depends
on, but even then I've not seen those symptoms before - only applications
accessing network shares tend to go bad in the worst case.

If it's only just happened it make be the fault of the WIFI driver (which is
different to it being the fault of WIFI).

Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing
100% signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the
router!) - and (only?) 60 - 80% link quality.

Totally normal. Those numbers are a general indicator only. Think fo a
temperature scale that runs 0-100. All you can be reasonably sure about is
80 is hotter/better than 60.

The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..


OK - I have 36 RX errors out of 1224798 and 5 dropped TX packets. Yours
sounds higher.

There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

It does sound more like bad drivers. Perhaps some other windows experts here
(I do linux mostly) have come across these? Especially as the driver loading
procedure seemed broken - expecially as you have XP - there is no excuse for
stupid driver loading procedures. MS for all their faults have had
standards for driver writers to follow for years now, same as applications.

Are the cards made by the company perchance and is this the actual card you
have?

http://www.newlinkproducts.co.uk/pro...D=2&prodID=251

In which case their contact details a

Domain name:
newlink.co.uk

Registrant:
Newlink Products Limited

Registrant type:
UK Limited Company, (Company number: 4483417)

Registrant's address:
10 Stadium Business Court
Millennium Way Pride Park
Derby
DE24 8HP
United Kingdom

You should be able to dig out a phone number.

The other option is will CPC take it back so you can buy a better card (I'm
thinking Linksys: expensive, or Netgear: cheap).

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'

No, it's not normal. Either your card and/or its driver are crap (most
likely) or you just got unlucky and Windows decided to go mental
coincidentally.

If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

No - as I mentioned, just get a decent brand card. Doesn't have to be
expensive - the Netgear WG311 on on Dabs is all of 17 quid - but what I
would do is check some reviews first to see if that card has thrown up
hoards of problems or not.

Cheers

Tim

--
Tim Watts

This space intentionally left blank...

Adrian Brentnall explained :
So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Over such a very short range, no it is not normal - but wired always
beats wireless for speed and reliability. There are a number of free
pieces of software, which can make use of your wireless card to see
what other wifi systems are running around the same area - not all work
with all wifi adaptors, but one is almost certain to. They will show
what else is around, how strong their signals are and which channels
are in use.

You need to find a clear channel with at least one clear channel either
side of it - make sure your card is configured to use UK channels and
turn your router off whilst it scans. These things are only able to
identify wifi interference from other wifi systems, but there are many
other sources of interference such as microwave ovens etc. able to wipe
the signal out.

FYFI - I have a wifi router which provides a reliable fixed link over
0.5Km in a very built up area using directional antennas. Just so you
know it can be done.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:12:51 +0000, Adrian Brentnall
wrote:

HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and the
router and loacting the router at the master socket.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very
unresponsive, mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...

Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing
100% signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the
router!) - and (only?) 60 - 80% link quality.
The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..

There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

I wouldn't touch wireless networking with a bargepole. Cat 5e cabling
for me every time.

MM

HI Dave
Thanks for the reply... comments inline

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:12:51 +0000, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC)
snip
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Don't know those cards, are they using the WiFi frequencies around
2.5GHz? If so there are only 3 channels that don't mutually interfere
with each other (1, 6 and 11 IIRC). See if you can find a channel
that has the least number of other (visible) devices on it. In an
urban area you may well find every channel chocker block with stuff
and there will be stuff you won't be able to see with your LAN kit
like video senders etc.

I don;t think you could call us 'urban' g
Our nearest neighbour is about 250 ft away - next one after than is half
a mile or so (and they're in the 80's - so not heavy users of wireless
technology!)

I did try changing channels - and it seemed to work on this PC but not
on the important one (my wife's PC!)


Cables work reliably and will be quicker unless you have a 10BaseT
LAN rather than 100BaseT, even the the 10BaseT could out perform many
wireless links. Oh and don't forget security...


Yes - I think it's back to cables.
Wife's PC is already back on the wired connection - I think I'll do the
same with this one...

Thanks (lesson learned!)

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Adrian Brentnall wrote:

HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and
the router and loacting the router at the master socket.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very
unresponsive, mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this
morning. -needed rebooting to get any life...

Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing
100% signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the
router!) - and (only?) 60 - 80% link quality.
The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..

There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good
old cables!

Thanks for any advice / experience
Adrian

Unless you're frequently moving your PCs (laptops?) around, I'd go for a
wired solution every time. It's far more reliable and far more secure. [If
wireless is flakey out of the box, think what it will be like when you
introduce decent encryption!]

If you *really* want to stick with wireless, disable the router's DHCP
server function and give each PC a fixed IP address. That will immediately
eliminate one common type of wireless connectivity problem.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

HI Tim

Tim.. wrote:

"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...
HI Folks

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good
old cables!


In a word.. yes, I would.

Use some homeplugs if you need data where is it not that easy to cable
Cat5 to.


Sounds sensible.
Actually, the laptop is running reasonably well (it's an old laptop!)
on a wireless connection (using a wireless different adapter)- which
suggests to me that the router's doing its stuff - and it's these two
wireless cards that are carp...

Not much need to run anything 'beyond the wires' - the weather station
server / mp3 jukebox in the outside studio has a flying Cat5 cable - so
it was really just a (not so) bright idea to try and reduce the cabling
in the office..

Thanks

Roger Mills
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 10:56


Unless you're frequently moving your PCs (laptops?) around, I'd go for a
wired solution every time. It's far more reliable and far more secure. [If
wireless is flakey out of the box, think what it will be like when you
introduce decent encryption!]

If you *really* want to stick with wireless, disable the router's DHCP
server function and give each PC a fixed IP address. That will immediately
eliminate one common type of wireless connectivity problem.

In the defence of WIFI, mine's rock solid and running WPA2-PSK. That's not
the most secure but it's good enough for most people.

--
Tim Watts

This space intentionally left blank...

HI Tim

Tim W wrote:
Adrian Brentnall
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 09:12

HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and the
router and loacting the router at the master socket.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very
unresponsive, mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...

That sounds like a Windows issue. The WIFI going tits up will not cause
those symptoms per-se, unless:

a) you are running a remote screen over WIFI (eg VNC, rdesktop, Citrix).

b) You have a server on the other end of the WIFI link that the PC depends
on, but even then I've not seen those symptoms before - only applications
accessing network shares tend to go bad in the worst case.

If it's only just happened it make be the fault of the WIFI driver (which is
different to it being the fault of WIFI).

Yes - happened today - wifi installed yesterday....


Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing
100% signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the
router!) - and (only?) 60 - 80% link quality.

Totally normal. Those numbers are a general indicator only. Think fo a
temperature scale that runs 0-100. All you can be reasonably sure about is
80 is hotter/better than 60.

Ah - right - thanks


The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..


OK - I have 36 RX errors out of 1224798 and 5 dropped TX packets. Yours
sounds higher.

Looking at this card (I've already switched my wife's PC back to a Cat5
connection) I see the following

TX ok 125970
TX error 5
Tx retry 1259
Tx beacon ok 0
Tx beacon error 0
RX ok 179473
Rx packet count 179473
Rx retry 44375
RX CRC Error (0-500) 5051
RX CRC Error (500-1000) 397
RX CRC Error ( 1000) 12570
RX icv Error 0

Whatever that might mean ! g


There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

It does sound more like bad drivers. Perhaps some other windows experts here
(I do linux mostly) have come across these? Especially as the driver loading
procedure seemed broken - expecially as you have XP - there is no excuse for
stupid driver loading procedures. MS for all their faults have had
standards for driver writers to follow for years now, same as applications.

Are the cards made by the company perchance and is this the actual card you
have?

http://www.newlinkproducts.co.uk/pro...D=2&prodID=251

Yes - that's the one


In which case their contact details a

Domain name:
newlink.co.uk

Registrant:
Newlink Products Limited

Registrant type:
UK Limited Company, (Company number: 4483417)

Registrant's address:
10 Stadium Business Court
Millennium Way Pride Park
Derby
DE24 8HP
United Kingdom

You should be able to dig out a phone number.

You'll have noticed the complete lack of a 'support' button on the
website ? - bit poor that.
Presumably it's just a warehouse full of far-east-manufactured kit -
not ideal....





The other option is will CPC take it back so you can buy a better card (I'm
thinking Linksys: expensive, or Netgear: cheap).

I've got an even better idea g
CPC can take it back and I'll plug the Cat5 back in !

They'll not love me - I had a wireless mouse (Trust) from them before
Christmas that refused to work on any of the 4 PCs here -
so they sent the man in the van out to collect that one as well....


So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'

No, it's not normal. Either your card and/or its driver are crap (most
likely) or you just got unlucky and Windows decided to go mental
coincidentally.

My thought was 'drivers'.
They also supplied the drivers on a mini-cd - which, whilst being 'cute'
and saving the company a penny per CD, meant that it was impossible to
load the driver CD-let on my wife's slimline dell tower unless you laid
the tower over on its side.... - plain silly !



If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

No - as I mentioned, just get a decent brand card. Doesn't have to be
expensive - the Netgear WG311 on on Dabs is all of 17 quid - but what I
would do is check some reviews first to see if that card has thrown up
hoards of problems or not.

Couldn't see anything on a quick scan -
think I'll ditch the idea as adding just another layer of unnecessary
complication g

Thanks
Adrian

Adrian Brentnall wrote:
HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and the
router and loacting the router at the master socket.


TNPS advice to people contemplating replacing a wired Ntework

Dont.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very
unresponsive, mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...


Welcome to the wide wonderful world of WiFi.

**** chipsets, even ****tier drivers and then Windows/...

ONLY reliable wireless machines I know of do NOT run windows. Macs are
actually good. Linux is pretty good IF you can find the drivers.




Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing 100%
signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the router!) -
and (only?) 60 - 80% link quality.
The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..


usual crap. Probably got some other 2.4 gear running. Try a different
channel?




There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!


best advice really.

I spent two- weeks trying to get a wireless enabled printer to talk to a
router 5 feet away. Gave up and ran a cable.

Tried 3 routers

NFG.



Thanks for any advice / experience
Adrian

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:12:51 +0000, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC)
snip
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Don't know those cards, are they using the WiFi frequencies around
2.5GHz? If so there are only 3 channels that don't mutually interfere
with each other (1, 6 and 11 IIRC).

Not strictly true.

There are 11 channels IIRC, and all to an extent interfere with each other.

Adrian Brentnall :
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and
the router and loacting the router at the master socket.

My first thought is: why would anyone do that? I can't think of a single
reason why I'd change from wired to wireless, unless I *really* needed
the portability.

Or perhaps the clue is in the "locating the router at the master
socket". That seems like a good idea, but if there wasn't any way of
doing it other than wireless, I wouldn't bother.

Have you looked at Homeplugs (ethernet over mains)? More expensive than
wireless, but IMO much better in every respect except portability.

--
Mike Barnes

Tim W wrote:
Roger Mills
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 10:56




In the defence of WIFI, mine's rock solid and running WPA2-PSK. That's not
the most secure but it's good enough for most people.


Outside of a corporate context (i.e. with an 802.1x authentication
server), what's more secure than WPA2-PSK?

DaveyO

"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...
HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and the
router and loacting the router at the master socket.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very unresponsive,
mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...

Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing 100%
signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the router!) - and
(only?) 60 - 80% link quality.
The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..

There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Thanks for any advice / experience

This sounds like a driver issue to me.

First, uninstall the drivers and then get them back off the manufacturer's
disk - sometimes windows screws up if it installs "generic" drivers (or
fails to install them properly) and then you use a disk to install new ones
over the top.

Second, if that doesn't improve things, use the "search for the best driver
on the internet" function to see if that can find more up to date drivers.

Third, search for your hardware (using the part number as ID) on the
internet and see if updated drivers are available or if there are any
comments from others having similar problems.

For the record, I use wireless (in a built up area) successfully, so it is
possible - do not give up at the first hurdle.

"Tim W" wrote in message
...

In the defence of WIFI, mine's rock solid and running WPA2-PSK. That's not
the most secure but it's good enough for most people.

+ 1 on this. I've not had a problem with wifi since we changed to using
laptops a couple of years ago. It also works reliably in other places.

I'd consider wired for fixed kit if cabling is easy, but otherwise am very
pleased with the radiation cooking my brain :-)

In message , Clive
George writes
I'd consider wired for fixed kit if cabling is easy, but otherwise am
very pleased with the radiation cooking my brain :-)

As someone else with a cooked brain, may I throw in another thought.

A wifi router is set to a channel and can work fine to one laptop. Add
more machines and they are all in contention on the same channel.

It seems to me that if any users work with substantial amounts of data -
eg working with audio or video data, or if there are reasons to copy
much data across the wifi network, everything can knit itself into a
fine mess.

Am I right? And does this also apply to the mains carrier systems?
--
Bill

Roger Mills wrote:

Unless you're frequently moving your PCs (laptops?) around, I'd go for a
wired solution every time. It's far more reliable and far more secure. [If
wireless is flakey out of the box, think what it will be like when you
introduce decent encryption!]

I completely disagree.
WiFi normally works perfectly well.
There is something wrong with the setup in the OP's case.
I'd try re-setting the PCI cards, moving the antennae, etc.
If that didn't work I'd assume there was something wrong
with the WiFi cards, and try another make, maybe USB.

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 11:24


ONLY reliable wireless machines I know of do NOT run windows. Macs are
actually good. Linux is pretty good IF you can find the drivers.

That's usually most of the time now. Broadcom and Intel chipsets are well
supported (even if it means a binary driver) and then there's NDIS
wrapper...

--
Tim Watts

This space intentionally left blank...

Dave Osborne
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 11:38

Tim W wrote:
Roger Mills
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 10:56




In the defence of WIFI, mine's rock solid and running WPA2-PSK. That's
not the most secure but it's good enough for most people.


Outside of a corporate context (i.e. with an 802.1x authentication
server), what's more secure than WPA2-PSK?

You just said it...

WPA2-PSK is good enough for most people, but it would be wrong to state it's
the most secure solution ;-


--
Tim Watts

This space intentionally left blank...

Bill
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 12:13

In message , Clive
George writes
I'd consider wired for fixed kit if cabling is easy, but otherwise am
very pleased with the radiation cooking my brain :-)

As someone else with a cooked brain, may I throw in another thought.

A wifi router is set to a channel and can work fine to one laptop. Add
more machines and they are all in contention on the same channel.

Yes.

It seems to me that if any users work with substantial amounts of data -
eg working with audio or video data, or if there are reasons to copy
much data across the wifi network, everything can knit itself into a
fine mess.

It shouldn't turn into a mess - it's designed to cope with that scenario.
But it will cause all the other connections to slow down.

Am I right? And does this also apply to the mains carrier systems?

Yes.

All systems are limited to a typical number of bits/sec. Once you overload
that, of course things suffer.

But you obviously have to try a bit harder to overload a fileserver serving
at gigabit speeds than one serving over a 30ish Mbit/s Wifi link.

I wire my core machines together with gig. My laptop runs fine on 802.11g
unless I have a lot of data to move, then I plug it in. My link to the
Internet is currently over WIFI too as I don't have the cables in place -
but that's 6Mbit/sec over a 30-ish Mbit/sec capable link so no problems...

--
Tim Watts

This space intentionally left blank...

Tim W gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

A wifi router is set to a channel and can work fine to one laptop. Add
more machines and they are all in contention on the same channel.

Yes.

Not quite.

A network is set to a channel.
That network shares a maximum theoretical bandwidth - 54mbps or whatever
- between the entire network. Think of an old-style hub, rather than a
switch.

Where the channels become an issue is when there's multiple networks
within reach. All of the channel frequencies overlap their neighbours
slightly. Get too much traffic on an overlapping frequency, and your
connection can get a bit flaky.

In message , Adrian
writes
Tim W gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

A wifi router is set to a channel and can work fine to one laptop. Add
more machines and they are all in contention on the same channel.

Yes.

Not quite.

A network is set to a channel.
That network shares a maximum theoretical bandwidth - 54mbps or
whatever - between the entire network. Think of an old-style hub,
rather than a switch.

But if you are copying files between two wifi machines via a router, I'd
have expected (based on no knowledge beyond guesswork) that there would
be more overheads. Is wifi really full duplex in this situation?

Copying files between laptops here certainly seems slow, although maybe
that's just another Vista feature.
--
Bill

Adrian
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 12:43

Tim W gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

A wifi router is set to a channel and can work fine to one laptop. Add
more machines and they are all in contention on the same channel.

Yes.

Not quite.

A network is set to a channel.
That network shares a maximum theoretical bandwidth - 54mbps or whatever
- between the entire network. Think of an old-style hub, rather than a
switch.

Where the channels become an issue is when there's multiple networks
within reach. All of the channel frequencies overlap their neighbours
slightly. Get too much traffic on an overlapping frequency, and your
connection can get a bit flaky.

This is also true - more depth than I bothered to mention. With 802.11g,
this is where the idea of "there are basically 3 usable channel groups" came
from - if your neighbours are running 802.11g (54Mb) then you want to divvy
up the channel space into about 3 blocks and work with those. You don't want
to be using adjacent real channels if you can help it.

--
Tim Watts

This space intentionally left blank...

Bill
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 12:57

In message , Adrian
writes
Tim W gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

A wifi router is set to a channel and can work fine to one laptop. Add
more machines and they are all in contention on the same channel.

Yes.

Not quite.

A network is set to a channel.
That network shares a maximum theoretical bandwidth - 54mbps or
whatever - between the entire network. Think of an old-style hub,
rather than a switch.

But if you are copying files between two wifi machines via a router, I'd
have expected (based on no knowledge beyond guesswork) that there would
be more overheads. Is wifi really full duplex in this situation?

Copying files between laptops here certainly seems slow, although maybe
that's just another Vista feature.

I've just measure mine with iperf

WIFI laptop to server via a single WIFI hop is giving around 17Mbit/sec
Laptop to another wifi client gives around 8-10mb/sec

So yes, it appears as you expected.

--
Tim Watts

This space intentionally left blank...

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:12:51 +0000, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network

What the heck is wrong with you!? :-)

Don't do it. Keep the wired network.

cheers

Jules

Tim W wrote:
Dave Osborne
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 11:38

Tim W wrote:
Roger Mills
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 10:56


In the defence of WIFI, mine's rock solid and running WPA2-PSK. That's
not the most secure but it's good enough for most people.

Outside of a corporate context (i.e. with an 802.1x authentication
server), what's more secure than WPA2-PSK?

You just said it...

WPA2-PSK is good enough for most people, but it would be wrong to state it's
the most secure solution ;-



OK, I thought I was missing some important new development!

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:12:51 +0000, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC)
snip
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Don't know those cards, are they using the WiFi frequencies around
2.5GHz? If so there are only 3 channels that don't mutually interfere
with each other (1, 6 and 11 IIRC).

Not strictly true.

There are 11 channels IIRC, and all to an extent interfere with each
other.

Not quite true

If you look here..

http://www.moonblinkwifi.com/2point4freq.cfm

1,2,3,4,5 are stacked, so channel 1 is not overlapped with Channels higher
then 5

6 is overlapped by 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

11 is overlapped by 7,8,9,10,12,13,14

So 1 is the lest overlapped channel.

Toby...

HI Timothy

Timothy Murphy wrote:
Roger Mills wrote:

Unless you're frequently moving your PCs (laptops?) around, I'd go for a
wired solution every time. It's far more reliable and far more secure. [If
wireless is flakey out of the box, think what it will be like when you
introduce decent encryption!]

I completely disagree.
WiFi normally works perfectly well.
There is something wrong with the setup in the OP's case.
I'd try re-setting the PCI cards, moving the antennae, etc.
If that didn't work I'd assume there was something wrong
with the WiFi cards, and try another make, maybe USB.


Tried resetting the cards - in fact they seem to require it fairly
frequently - which is a pain as I have to type in a 20-digit WPA key
(twice!) each time

Difficult voing the antennae - they're on the back of a couple of
mini-towers

I'm tempted to believe that it's the cards at fault -
and have emailed CPC to ask for an RMA. The laptop's working fine
(different type of card) - but I can't be bothered to spend hours
trying to sort out something which I feel should work 'straight out of
the box'.

If the manufacturer offered some sort of online support then I might
give that a go... but they don't...

Thanks
Adrian

HI TNP

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Adrian Brentnall wrote:
HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and
the router and loacting the router at the master socket.


TNPS advice to people contemplating replacing a wired Ntework

Dont.

g - Now you tell me !


Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very
unresponsive, mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...


Welcome to the wide wonderful world of WiFi.

**** chipsets, even ****tier drivers and then Windows/...

C'mon - what do you _really_ think g


ONLY reliable wireless machines I know of do NOT run windows. Macs are
actually good. Linux is pretty good IF you can find the drivers.




Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing
100% signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the
router!) - and (only?) 60 - 80% link quality.
The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..


usual crap. Probably got some other 2.4 gear running. Try a different
channel?

No - nothing else on this property -
the only other wirelessy kit is the weather station and that's on 800mhz





There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good
old cables!


best advice really.

Thanks - I've emailed them to convey my admiration g


I spent two- weeks trying to get a wireless enabled printer to talk to a
router 5 feet away. Gave up and ran a cable.

Tried 3 routers

Yes - file under 'life's too short' g

Thanks
Adrian

HI Mike

Mike Barnes wrote:
Adrian Brentnall :
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and
the router and loacting the router at the master socket.

My first thought is: why would anyone do that?

Naive optimism ? g
Seemed like a good idea at the time...

I can't think of a single
reason why I'd change from wired to wireless, unless I *really* needed
the portability.

Or perhaps the clue is in the "locating the router at the master
socket". That seems like a good idea, but if there wasn't any way of
doing it other than wireless, I wouldn't bother.

Yes - I think you're right...
To be honest, I don't know how much of an issue the 'locate router at
Master Socket' thing might be - but this new landline broadband
connection's not the fastest ever, though it does seem more consistent
than the microwave link we've used for the last 3 years - and moving the
router to the Master Socket was one more thing to try.

TBH it could be done perfectly easily with a wired connection - so
maybe I'll try that...


Have you looked at Homeplugs (ethernet over mains)? More expensive than
wireless, but IMO much better in every respect except portability.


No great need for portability - see above.

Thanks
Adrian

On Jan 4, 11:37*am, Mike Barnes wrote:
Adrian Brentnall :

The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and
the router and loacting the router at the master socket.

My first thought is: why would anyone do that? I can't think of a single
reason why I'd change from wired to wireless, unless I *really* needed
the portability.

Or perhaps the clue is in the "locating the router at the master
socket". That seems like a good idea, but if there wasn't any way of
doing it other than wireless, I wouldn't bother.

Have you looked at Homeplugs (ethernet over mains)? More expensive than
wireless, but IMO much better in every respect except portability.

--
Mike Barnes

After faffing with Belkin USB WiFi adapters on a number of machines
and never really getting them to work well, it was a breath of fresh
air to install Devolo (refused to buy Belkin ever again) homeplugs.
Plug them in and they just work, absolutely no setup required for
basic operation. A utility lets you enable encryption.

MBQ

Bill wrote:
In message , Adrian
writes
Tim W gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

A wifi router is set to a channel and can work fine to one laptop. Add
more machines and they are all in contention on the same channel.

Yes.

Not quite.

A network is set to a channel.
That network shares a maximum theoretical bandwidth - 54mbps or
whatever - between the entire network. Think of an old-style hub,
rather than a switch.

But if you are copying files between two wifi machines via a router, I'd
have expected (based on no knowledge beyond guesswork) that there would
be more overheads. Is wifi really full duplex in this situation?

Indeed.

Copying files between laptops here certainly seems slow, although maybe
that's just another Vista feature.

Everything about windows is crap. Get used to it.

HI Yellow

Yellow wrote:
"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...
HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network
connections between the three (dell desktop) office pc's (winxp) and the
router and loacting the router at the master socket.

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC) &
installed them. Wouldn't install under Windows' 'found new hardware'
routine - had to use the manufacturer's own utility to install.

Anyway - they seem to be working - but one of the PCs is losing its
wireless connection intermittently, and both were in a 'very unresponsive,
mouse cursor not responding' sort of place, this morning.
-needed rebooting to get any life...

Looking at the diagnostics on the wireless cards - both are showing 100%
signal strength (can't be more than 10ft from the pc to the router!) - and
(only?) 60 - 80% link quality.
The detailed stats show (amongst other things) rx retry of 20% -
and a whole bundle of RX CRC errors..

There's no troubleshooting info with the PCI cards - and no means of
contacting a tech support organisation - the instruction leaflet says
'contact your vendor' ..... (CPC! - yeah, right)

So - 'Dear Marge - is this normal ?'
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good old
cables!

Thanks for any advice / experience

This sounds like a driver issue to me.

First, uninstall the drivers and then get them back off the manufacturer's
disk - sometimes windows screws up if it installs "generic" drivers (or
fails to install them properly) and then you use a disk to install new ones
over the top.

Second, if that doesn't improve things, use the "search for the best driver
on the internet" function to see if that can find more up to date drivers.

Third, search for your hardware (using the part number as ID) on the
internet and see if updated drivers are available or if there are any
comments from others having similar problems.

For the record, I use wireless (in a built up area) successfully, so it is
possible - do not give up at the first hurdle.


Thanks for the suggestions - but I think I'll just give up at the first
hurdle g

CPC will hopefully accept these two rubbish cards back - and I'll use
the refund to buy something useful. like screws! g

The thing's probably solvable - but I don;t want to spend hours of my
time on it - defeatist, I know, but there you go....

Thanks
Adrian

HI Jules

Jules wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:12:51 +0000, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

HI Folks
The new 'net connection came complete with a wireless router -
so was playing with the idea of getting rid of the wired network

What the heck is wrong with you!? :-)

Y'know - sometimes I wonder the same thing ! g


Don't do it. Keep the wired network.

Makes sense!

Thanks
Adrian

Tim W wrote:
The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Monday 04 January 2010 11:24


ONLY reliable wireless machines I know of do NOT run windows. Macs are
actually good. Linux is pretty good IF you can find the drivers.

That's usually most of the time now. Broadcom and Intel chipsets are well
supported (even if it means a binary driver) and then there's NDIS
wrapper...

I ****ing HATE NDIS. it was rubbish when it first appeared, and its
still rubbish now ;-)

Toby wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:12:51 +0000, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

Bought a couple of 'Newlink' Wireless 11g 54Mbps PCI cards (CPC)
snip
If so - I think I'll just dump the wireless idea and go back to good
old cables!

Don't know those cards, are they using the WiFi frequencies around
2.5GHz? If so there are only 3 channels that don't mutually interfere
with each other (1, 6 and 11 IIRC).

Not strictly true.

There are 11 channels IIRC, and all to an extent interfere with each
other.

Not quite true

If you look here..

http://www.moonblinkwifi.com/2point4freq.cfm

1,2,3,4,5 are stacked, so channel 1 is not overlapped with Channels
higher then 5

6 is overlapped by 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

11 is overlapped by 7,8,9,10,12,13,14

So 1 is the lest overlapped channel.

Toby...


Firstly that there is a gross simplification. All channels are spread
spectrum anyway, so the effect of overlap is not 'hit or miss' but
simply one of slow degradation.

secondly those are indeed the channel centers about which the
frequencies are 'spread' but in practice, power is very low, so they do
not necessarily do as much to each other as you might think.

"Adrian Brentnall" wrote in message
...

Tried resetting the cards - in fact they seem to require it fairly
frequently - which is a pain as I have to type in a 20-digit WPA key
(twice!) each time

Now there's a mug's game. Store the key in a file on the computer, then
paste it in each time. It irritates me that windows treats it as a secret
password with *s as you type, where it its pretty unlikely that it's that
important to hide it.

Adrian Brentnall wrote:
HI TNP

The Natural Philosopher wrote:


I spent two- weeks trying to get a wireless enabled printer to talk to
a router 5 feet away. Gave up and ran a cable.

Tried 3 routers

Yes - file under 'life's too short' g


multipath in a typical place full of cables, foil backed plasterboard.
pipes and nails is ghastly.

I've got wifi here. It can ONLY penetrate from here to the bedroom
across the corridor. I cant get it in the kitchen blow that wedroom and
certainly NOT parked in a car outside the house.

Friend has a mac book and that DID get it in the kitchen.


OTOH we regularly fly model planes on the technology at ranges up to
about 3 km with 100mW sets. And in excess of a kilometer with 10mW sets.

(Yes, we know how far, because friends GPS sensing UAV went out of
control on a 10mW set at about 3/4 of a mile over the village.
Fortunately the failsafe GPS gradually brought it back to where he could
get control again..)

I was on telemetry duty..and reported that the telemetry, on about a
watt of illegal spectrum was reporting it slowly turning towards us, and
maintaining a reasonable height and airspeed..;-)


Havent had so much fun since we let off coal gas filled balloons with
fuses over west london and caused a UFO panic..

Thanks
Adrian