"dorancat" <dorancat@gmail.com> hath wroth:
>I just picked up a Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, which comes with an
>internal
>wireless card, Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card Rev 3.6. http://www.dell.com/content/products...=04&l=en&s=bsd
>My router at
>home
>is an older one, an SMC 7004VWBR. Had it for a couple of years, its
>only
>802.11b (i think).
It's 802.11b only.
>The SMC had worked well before with an older dell laptop, but it had an
>SMC
>PCMCIA wireless card to talk to the router.
>
>With the new dell, I upgraded the SMC firmware so that I could use WPA
>encryption. That all seemed to go ok, and I turned on encryption and
>all
>is good, right?
Right. WPA is good.
>Kinda....
>
>Occasionally, while surfing, the Dell loses its inetrnet connection.
>Firefox shows that
>page not found error. Checking the wireless info, I will have an
>excellent signal to the
>router and no indication of anything wrong.
Let's see if I got this right. It disconnects *WHILE* surfing? Not
while it's idle or not being used? There's no relation with the
laptop going into hibernate or power save mode? If it disconnected
while idle, I would have you check the power save settings on the
laptop to make sure it's not shutting down. There's also a possible
issue with 802.1x authentication, where it disconnects every XXXX
seconds when re-negotiating for a new key. That would be a driver
issue on your Dell 1390 PCI Express card. However, having it
disconnect *WHILE* you're surfing implies interference from some other
wireless device. See the FAQ at:
<http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi#Interference>
for a list of possible culprits. The easiest thing to do first is
change the channel (1, 6, or 11). Relocate the router to some place
that does not have a view of the city. Lay off the microwave dinners.
Trade in the 2.4GHz cordless phone for a 900MHz or 5.8GHz model. Etc.
Is there any pattern to the disconnects?
>By right-clicking on the
>wireless icon and
>selecting 'Repair', the problem is fixed and back to surfing, etc.
Try this instead:
start -> run -> cmd <enter>
ipconfig /release
wait about 10 seconds
ipconfig /renew
ipconfig
Did you get an IP address? Does it now work? If so, methinks the
DHCP lease has expired and the renewal failed. The sloppy way to fix
that is to just extend the lease time in the SMC router settings.
>This happens at least
>once or twice a day. And happens at seemingly random times during
>normal use of
>the laptop.
Not good. That sounds like genuine interference. You can have a very
strong signal, but if the interference is equally strong, it will
eventually disconnect.
>When this happens, I do know that the router is still flowing info from
>my ISP cause
>I have checked my desktop, which is hard-wired to the router, and it
>still has a connection
>to the outside.
>
>Does this sound more like a router or wireless card problem? Any
>suggestions would
>be appreciated.
Incidentally, did you update the Dell 1390 driver to the latest
revision?
I would guess(tm) that it's neither and sounds more like interference
or possibly power management setting for the 1390 card. The wireless
cards all tend to favor the higher 802.11g speeds with 2nd class
service offered to 802.11b devices. If the Dell 1390 settings offer
something like an "802.11b only" setting, I would try that. Definitely
try a different RF channel (1, 6, or 11). Otherwise, methinks it's
time to go shopping for an 802.11g wireless router.
--
Jeff Liebermann
jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Intermittent connection - is it my card or my router? 
Linear Mode
