Re: Wireless Networking Woes
From: warren montgomery (wamontgomery_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 02/12/04
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Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:00:33 -0600
>I would so like to
> hear about the experiences of others who have been luckier
> than I, and will be grateful if they could also include a
> brief description of the system and hardware they have.
> Please post replies to Newsgroup so that all can benefit by
> your views.
>
I have a linksys 802.11B network, 2 laptops and a desktop all with wireless
adaptors connecting to a linksys wireless router which connects to a cable
modem. I don't know that I'm a success case -- in fact I've spent a lot of
time tracing failures of various sorts, but I could offer this:
Web surfing performance is adequate from all machines, though one of the
laptop often reports "a network cable has been disconnected" and moderate to
poor signal quality. Doesn't seem to hinder it that much in general. The
longest run (interestingly enough not the laptop) is about 60 feet (20m)
between two wings of a L shaped ranch house, so the straight line goes
through two exterior walls and one interior wall -- I tried to position the
adaptors so the line takes it through windows, though I honestly don't know
what the real signal path is given that 802.11B is often received through
reflected paths.
The area of consistent problem for me is file sharing and printing. Its
often unreliable (transfers fail half way through, print jobs hang, etc.
After lots of experimenting I conclude that in part it's just an inherent
problem of transfering data between two machines connected wirelessly
through an access point (infrastructure mode). The problem is your data
goes over the airwaves twice (once from one machine to the AP and again from
the AP to the other machine), which means even if nothing else is going on
your network is interfering with itself. Indeed, if I connect one machine
directly to the wireless router and disable it's wireless link (to force it
to go over the cable to the router), the transfer becomes a bit more
reliable and goes anywhere from 50% to 300% faster. (Interestingly enough
speed seems to depend on whether you are "pushing" files or "pulling" them
and on which machine is wired, sender or receiver.
My desktop machine (XP) which has a USB based adaptor seems to shut down the
wireless link periodically. (i.e. linksys's "configuration tool", which
displays signal strength, will drop out and indicate it's not connected, and
then reconnect after a second or two. These dropouts are real, stopping
traffic. I've tried reloading drivers and other fixes without a change. I
don't know whether this is a bug of some sort or just a reaction to
interference.
I believe my network experiences interference from othe 2.4Ghz devices from
time to time. Performance is generally pretty good during the day, and
often worse at night, especially to my desktop machine, which has the
longest distance and is nearest other houses in the neighborhood. None of
the tools show other 802.11 networks, but I know some cordless phones
operate on the same radio band. I suspect this is actually a cause of
unexplained poor performance for a lot of people. Unfortunately, I also
suspect many of the things they tell you about positioning your antenna
(e.g. putting it up high) also make this worse, because while it improves
your signal range, it also puts you in range of more devices outside your
house.
-- Warren Montgomery wamontgomery@att.net ( http://home.att.net/~wamontgomery )
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