You may remember I was having issues with my WAP last fall and I asked for recommendations on a new one. I thought all my problems were solved when Santa brought me a new Netgear router.
Unfortunately, I haven't had very good luck with my Netgear WGT624V3.
The initial setup was a snap, but the troubles started when I tweaked some settings. The first problem was with WEP. I could setup WEP, but neither laptop nor my PDA could connect to it. I certainly wasn't going to run unsecured in a high-density area. This WAP also supports WPA, so I enabled it and got the two laptops talking to it. I'm out of luck with my PDA, but that's something I could live with.
After a couple of days, the laptops started disconnecting periodically. The first fix on the Netgear forums suggested some settings to tweak.
I also found a fix on the Netgear forums suggesting my problem was thermal and I should do this:
Um, I don't think so. I did some more research and found out that people occasionally have problems with the 108Mbps settings, so I turned that off. Wireless connections were somewhat stable after that.
I've noticed over the last week that my desktop computer occasionally says "Network cable unplugged" for about 15 seconds and then it goes away. OK, maybe the cable is bad. I swapped all the ethernet cables out with brand new ones from Staples. After that was done, I still got the message.
Three strikes and you're out. Fortunately I had my old Linksys router around so I hooked it back up and got desktop service back. The Netgear router is going back to the store tonight. If they don't take it, it's going to ebay. If I can't sell it there, it's going to the skeet range.
Maybe because I'm in IT I expect things to always work they way they're supposed to. (Lord knows, I work with Oracle, so that's always the case). What would the normal home consumer do?
4 comments:
The normal home user doesn't (usually) give 2 shakes about security and would probably leave the thing unsecured and working.
With the range measured in inches, I don't expect to find any signal outside my appartment - so much for working in the garden (haven't tried it yet - too cold). Even so WPA/WPA2 on my USRobotics is fine (except that there isn't a Linux driver for the USB receiver - see HJR's tales of woe).
I've noticed over the last week that my desktop computer occasionally says "Network cable unplugged" for about 15 seconds and then it goes away. OK, maybe the cable is bad. I swapped all the ethernet cables out with brand new ones from Staples. After that was done, I still got the message.
I've just come back from fixing something like this for a friend. The problem was that BOTH the router/hub and the network card were "auto detect" for speed & duplex (the hub by construction, the NIC by default). Seems to be fixed by configuring the NIC as (say) 100bps/Duplex. Kid's play under Windoze; you'll have to hack it yourself for Linux.
(verification: luxylu - padded seat?)
An answer for bob on WiFi security:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/technology/05wireless.html?ex=1299214800&en=de40126b08550e0a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
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