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bell_s
join:2003-08-22
Romania

bell_s

Member

Intel pro/wireless 2200 BG Problems.

I'm having some real difficulties with my wireless network as of about 4-5 days or so. I noticed that my wireless connects to my network at 54Mbps but soon drops to 1Mbps. i didn't give it much thought at first but as time went by and it didn't resolve itself after a reboot i begun to ask myself what is going on. So i started to investigate thinking that there must be something wrong with the router. I rebooted the router and the laptop but to my surprise the same thing was happening. I even tried connecting to my neighbours unsecured wi-fi to see if the same thing happens and sure enough it drops like a rock to 1Mbps.
I have no ideea why it does this. I have tried changing one setting at a time to see maybe i have done something but i don't really remember anything out of the ordinary and why it doesn't want to connect at over 1mbps. As soon as i start any download it just goes from 54Mbps to 1.... and on speed tests it only goes as high as half a megabit....
i have wpa-psk enabled but even without it it still has the same speed... as i thought that maybe encription will slow things down. i'm running out of ideeas here and doing a search on google about it doesn't turn up much thing either. if anyone has any type of ideea regarding this issue i would really appreciate it as i also appreciate any questions that could clarify further this issue. i'll just give up for tonight since it's only 4am but i'll start fresh tomorrow.
Thank you very much

Sergiu

jkonrad
Konman
Premium Member
join:2001-10-04
Mount Airy, MD

jkonrad

Premium Member

Mine is doing that too, haven't found much of a reason why yet. It would be best to get as much detail though.

I notice mine on three of my WRT54G running any firmware Sveasoft Alchemy rc6a, HyperWRT 2.1b, and the latest Linksys. I am running the Intel 9.0.1.9 driver and XP SP2. This also happens when I disable WZC and use the Intel Client Manager.

In XP you don't need to reboot to fix it, you just need to right click on the connection and choose repair. Usually fixes it for a longer period of time.
Shootist
Premium Member
join:2003-02-10
Decatur, GA

Shootist to bell_s

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to bell_s
Check the power options for the card. If it's set to use limited/reduced power to save on the battery you will see this type of thing.

jkonrad
Konman
Premium Member
join:2001-10-04
Mount Airy, MD

jkonrad

Premium Member

good point to add to the "specs" to diagnose - for me my transmit power is set to full, and power management for the card is set for maximum performance (no power managemnet according to the driver)

bell_s
join:2003-08-22
Romania

bell_s

Member


he Advanced Tab and the Transmit Power

i have no ideea what this is but it hasn't changed

Power management is set to highest

it's set to both so i can use my school's wireless. hasn't changed either.

And there's the driver.
sorry for not posting the specs and everything. i started this thread at 4 in the morning and i wasn't exactly coherent:D. i took some screenshots of the whole advanced and driver tab for anyone to see.. maybe i'm missing something. i remember last night i went into pretty much everything disabled everything just to make sure it wasn't some setting i changed (probably it is ... but for the love of god i just can't find it.)
after every repair that i do the speed comes back to 54Mbps but as soon as i access the net, or even the LAN it just drops to 1mbps. i checked the system logs and i get some messages but when i check with the M$ KB it seems to be regarding not being able to connect to a share. i'll read again since last night i was tired and probably didn't understand one or more things.
well .... i'll leave you to this and i'll go recheck those system logs.
thank you

Sergiu
here are the jpegs:
bell_s

bell_s

Member

well ... now it just goes all over the place:48mpbs, 36mbps, 54mbps but if i try to download anything won't get anywhere over 600kbps ... weird...can it be my router? It's a WRT54G with Firmware Version: v2.02.8-pptp but it's been working like this for a long while... strange... the wired network works just fine
kiritnayna
join:2005-02-24

kiritnayna

Member

I also have the same prob mine is a tosh tablet intel 2200bg
and belkin pre-n, all was well until my neighbor bought a wireless router a D-link g604t, I have tried changing the channel id and now get full signal at 54mbt but can intermittently connect to my router.

jkonrad
Konman
Premium Member
join:2001-10-04
Mount Airy, MD

jkonrad to bell_s

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to bell_s
I would either go to Linksys and get a new firmware for the 54g which updates its wireless driver, or try HYPERWRT's firmware based on the latest Linksys Firmware.

bell_s
join:2003-08-22
Romania

bell_s to kiritnayna

Member

to kiritnayna
said by kiritnayna:

I have tried changing the channel id and now get full signal at 54mbt but can intermittently connect to my router.
well, i also changed the channel and there are no new networks around here... i guess my best bet is taking it for a quick session of wardriving... see what happends...

DanHo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-20
Seattle, WA

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said by jkonrad:

I would either go to Linksys and get a new firmware for the 54g which updates its wireless driver, or try HYPERWRT's firmware based on the latest Linksys Firmware.
I am using HYPERWRT's firmware and am having the same issues. I initially connect and it says I have excellent signal strength. When I try to surf the net, it completely kills the connection. I did notice on my Dell that when the issues get really bad the little WiFi indicator light just above the keyboard goes out. However, I am still connected to the net. Really weird issue.

BTW, I have the same internal wireless card as the OP.
DanHo

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I was just over searching through the dell forums and there are a number of complaints about this issue. However, there seems to be no concrete resolution.
indigo31
join:1999-08-22

1 edit

indigo31

Member

I too am having the same problem. I got a new HP laptop a couple of days ago with the Intel 2200BG built in. Connects at 54Mbps, then steadily goes down to 1Mbps. I have a linksys WAP54g access point with the latest firmware (2.08). It's set to G only, as is my nic. I have the transmit power set to full on the nic. The connection was absolutely horrible using AES. I went back to TKIP and it's a lot more reliable, but it will still drop down to 24Mbps on occasion. My INTERNET speed tests on here are dismal (1500kbps or so when I should be getting close to 5000), and yet when I plug in the laptop to the wired LAN I get close to 5000kbps like I should. This is even with the 54Mbps detected.

I've even tried benchmarking my speed by downloading a large file from my local webserver on the network, and that goes at 2,300KB/sec, or around 18Mbps. That's what boggles me most about it, why are my internet speed tests only 1500kbps on wireless that's running at 18Mbps? It's not my connection, as I've proved.

I've done everything I can think of, from updating to the latest intel drivers for the wireless card to changing it so the Intel software manages the connection instead of Windows. I even turned off the zero config service. No dice.

I'm going to stick with TKIP for now because I get a lot more reliable connection with it than I do with AES. Before anyone says it's neighbors or other wireless devices, I am in Maine, my house is surrounded by trees, and netstumbler doesn't pick up any other wireless networks in my area. I even went on a little wardrive to see if that was the problem, I could not find any other network around for miles. I dont have any other wireless equipment, so that's not the problem either. It has to be with the Intel card. I'm out of ideas on how to solve this.
indigo31

indigo31

Member

Here's an update. I uninstalled the latest intel driver and rolled back to the stock win xp driver for the wireless nic. That improved the connection drastically. No more frequent disconnects or speed drops. XP manages the wireless. It stays at 54Mbps for a majority of the time, and online speedtest is up near 4Mbps now. The stock xp version is dated 3/8/2004 and is 8.0.12.20000. Hopefully this may help in solving others' problems

DanHo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-20
Seattle, WA

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Well, I spent 45 minutes on the phone with Dell. Got India and the woman that I spoke with did not have to much of an accent, which was nice. Anyway, Dell is sending me a new wireless card for my computer.
jpark
join:2005-02-05
Jackson, TN

jpark to bell_s

Member

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I installed an Intel Pro/Wireless 2915ABG card in my system a few days ago. Have spent several days trying to get good signal strength and throughput. Changed everything I could think of with no effect. Used Windows to manage the connection and tried the Intel utility. Same results.

I just tried something that makes no sense, but now my connection and speed is excellent. The configuration for the card has a setting for Transmit Power. According to the Intel documentation, by default it is set to maximum. The card showed the default as the selection and maximum as the setting. I unchecked the default checkbox and saved the change. When I recheck, it is back to the default setting but I continue to get good connections.

Perhaps it doesn't really go to the maximum setting until you change the setting?
rhsauer
join:2005-03-21
New York, NY

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For what its worth I've been having the exact same problems and pulling my hair out trying to resolve them. I have the Toshiba Portege Tablet pc with the Intel 2200 BG. I just tried changing to the 8.1.1.0 driver and it seems much better. So far the speed hasn't dropped below 24 Mbps. Earlier tonight, before installing the new (old) driver the speed would drop to 1 Mbps within 5-10 minutes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed at this point.

How can this technology be so difficult at this point? It's not exactly new.

bell_s
join:2003-08-22
Romania

bell_s

Member

well .. i changed the firmware with the latest one from linksys but now my router will just stop responding to pings after a while and will not let me access the config page and if i try browsing the net, webpages won't load and i get dns errors. i think my router is about to kick the bucket.
the issue that i had with the speed resolved itself after i upgraded the firmware but i have to say that i had used the same firmware with the same card with the same driver for a long while without a hitch. i'm really stomped...

tmartindub
Premium Member
join:2004-04-04
Dublin, GA

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I have a Dell Latitude C610 and have the exact same problems. I have done everything, including uninstalling everything and re-installing everything and it still does it.

Seems when I uninstall it, it keeps the old drivers around since it never asks me where to get the drivers on the re-install.

It's a pisser because I really like the inboard card but I cannot live at 1 mb/sec.

Any help is appreciated.

T. Martin
rhsauer
join:2005-03-21
New York, NY

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Member

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For what its worth I have a D-link wireless router in another part of the house and it seems to work better with this card. Maybe the problem is the interaction between the Linksys and the 2200BG.

jkonrad
Konman
Premium Member
join:2001-10-04
Mount Airy, MD

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well the 8.0.12.20000 driver works just fine with the linksys. I had ran it for a while and was fine, upgraded and problems did start (but also did FW on linksys so wasn't sure). The only issue with the 8.0.12.20000 driver is it does not support WPA-PSK AES, ony TKIP.
indigo31
join:1999-08-22

indigo31

Member

I still get speed downgrade problems with the 8.0.12.20000 driver, but nothing like what was happening with the horrendous driver Intel has on their site. It usually goes down to 48 and then 36Mbps and then recovers back up to 54Mbps. The only problem is, when I do speedtests from the internet it still kills the connection. Doing a speedtest from a local webserver on the LAN, however, goes at a rock steady 2300KB/sec and doesn't kill it. The last thing I want to do is be forced to buy an external wireless card just because Intel can't figure out their own hardware and drivers.

jkonrad
Konman
Premium Member
join:2001-10-04
Mount Airy, MD

jkonrad

Premium Member

that sounds like a different issue, as downloading from a local webserver is not any different then the internet to the the AP. With the newest driver my connection would die internally and externally. Now no issues. What is the speed up/down speed of your connection to the internet and what type is it.

tmartindub
Premium Member
join:2004-04-04
Dublin, GA

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There is a new driver out for this card which seems to do a bit better. It appears to have a throttle or something like that. If you are not using the connection, it goes back to as low as 5.5 mbps. But when you change browser pages or download, it revs up to 54.0 mpbs.

The driver comes with Intel ProSet wireless software and the version is 9.0.1.0.

There is one other problem I have with this card: Noise when you do something. It has noise emitted from the PC speaker on the right that resembles the noise of an active disk. I cannot find a way to get rid of it; even muting the speakers does not stop it.

Does anyone know how to get rid of that bothersome nois?

Thanks.

jkonrad
Konman
Premium Member
join:2001-10-04
Mount Airy, MD

1 edit

jkonrad

Premium Member

I'll play with this driver some (9.0.1.9, released 3-2-2005)

However what you describe sounds like power management settings turned on in the driver.

As for the noise, doesn't happen on any of the 10 laptops I have this card in, which laptop do you have?

added: This seems to be the same driver that does still cause issues, not sure why they put a new date on it. The 8.0.0 works just fine, you just lose the option of AES encryption on WPA

BigSensFan
Premium Member
join:2003-07-16
Belle River, ON

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I have 2 routers in the house. If it connects to the Speedstream 6300, I have no problem. However if it connects to the TrendNet TEW-431B it drops to 1mbs and is inaccessible.

I believe it is in the firmware of the router.

tmartindub
Premium Member
join:2004-04-04
Dublin, GA

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I have a Dell Latitude C610, firmware version A16. It is noise like the cpu or something and only affects the right speaker. I have tried this in several different latitudes and it does the same. It may be a quirk in the model or something like inadequate shielding.
JTS33
join:2003-05-03
USA

JTS33

Member

said by tmartindub:

I have a Dell Latitude C610, firmware version A16. It is noise like the cpu or something and only affects the right speaker. I have tried this in several different latitudes and it does the same. It may be a quirk in the model or something like inadequate shielding.
I've noticed this with a few Toshiba laptops as well. When there's network activity, there is high-pitched static from the speakers. The more network activity, the louder the noise. Appears to be a shielding issue.
jpark
join:2005-02-05
Jackson, TN

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said by tmartindub:

I have a Dell Latitude C610, firmware version A16. It is noise like the cpu or something and only affects the right speaker. I have tried this in several different latitudes and it does the same. It may be a quirk in the model or something like inadequate shielding.
I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 but I believe the Latitude C series is built along the same lines? I don't have your problem, but the antenna cable snakes from the card toward the right speaker. Perhaps you have a problem with the connection from the cable to the antenna?

tmartindub
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join:2004-04-04
Dublin, GA

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Perhaps it is a shielding problem. I can add some shielding to the wires that run through the inside and see if that helps. It may be a bad board.

DanHo
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join:2002-05-20
Seattle, WA

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Turns out that my card was fried (not sure how or why). Dell replaced it under warranty and now I am up and running like I was before.