WL500g as AP disconnects NO use of WAN port

[Bunzzing]

I bought an Asus WL500g 3 weeks ago and upgraded to the official Asus 1.7.5.9 firmware to increase the radio power to 50. I connect to it with my Dell Inspiron 5150 with an internal dell truemobile 1350 wifi card. I use mac filtering, no ssid broadcast, WPA+PSK with AES only security. I only use the wl500g as an AP in my network. Everything worked fine until today.

I tried to download MS Windows XP SP2 today (266mB) to a network share on my internal network. After the download finishes, the file has to be copied from the temporary download folder to the folder I specified (the network share) During this process, the wireless connection between the AP and my laptop disconnects. The leds on the Asus wl500g still work normal. I have to re-power the asus or reboot my laptop in order to browse the intra/internet again.

My network is setup as follows:

- @Home cable modem is connected to a Draytek Vigor 2200E router.
- An 8 port switch is connected to the LAN port of the Vigor router.
- From the 8 port switch serveral utp cables go to different network devices, including the Asus WL500g
- My laptop connects thru the wireless connection with the Asus.

The cable from the switch to the Asus is a straight utp cable plugged into the LAN1 port (Also tried LAN2 and LAN3)

In the above scenario the wireless connections drops after downloading and copying the 266mB file to the server. I tried this exactly 5 times and all 5 downloads faild during the copying process.

Next I plugged an utp cable in te Asus WL500g and my laptop, to try the same 266mB download but now completely wired. The download finished and the copying of the file from the temp folder to the network share completed succesfully.

I think there is nothing wrong with the LAN ports of the Asus 500g, but something with the wifi connection. The only question is: what ? Can't the Asus cope with high amount of data ?

I also mentioned that, when I connected thru wifi, I used the LAN2 and LAN3 port, but then still the wifi connection disconnects after downloading.....

The download speed is quite stable, around 500kB/s. Everyday I manually download the 5mB antivirus definitions from the symantec website. This results in NO disconnections of the wifi connection. Surfing the internet works OK.

Again, I do NOT use the WAN port on the Asus WL500g. I also read the other topics about this problem, but in those topics everybody used the WAN port. An other thing I did is to shut down the Asus for 10 or more minutes completely. The wifi connection is functional then and the speed between my Dell and the Asus is between 48 and 54 dbi.

Is there anyone who has the same problems and doesn't use the WAN port, like I do ? I find this very frustrating because that's the only disappointing thing I found using this device. Hope someone here can give me some tips etc etc. If you need more information, let me know, I will provide it.....

GR. Bunzzing

[Oleg]

You mean WLAN, not WAN right?
If so, try decreasing output power back to 19 mW and try again to check this work.

[Bunzzing]

You mean WLAN, not WAN right?
If so, try decreasing output power back to 19 mW and try again to check this work.

No I really meant the WAN port.....which has to be connected to the cable modem if you use the Asus as a router. I do use WLAN. In the other posts about the same subject, the users used the WAN because they used the Asus as a gateway which gets its IP directly from their ISP. Mayby I wrote it down a bit confusing. The WLAN disconnects but I only use Asus as an Access Point in my internal network, so I don't use the WAN port. If I read everything correctly in the other topics, the others thought that the WLAN disconnections were related to the WAN port. In my case it isn't. Hope you understand it a bit better now. Sorry for the confusion......

[Oleg]

So, try decreasing ouput power. :)

[Bunzzing]

So, try decreasing ouput power. :)

Decreased the output power to the original value of 19. Guess what. Same thing. After downloading XP SP2 it disconnects......

Any other ideas.....?

[Antiloop]

ehm.. what is your server ?

you copy to a HD connected to the wl500g via USB ?

[Bunzzing]

ehm.. what is your server ?

you copy to a HD connected to the wl500g via USB ?

No, I only use the wl500g as an AP nothing more, nothing else connected. My server is an AMD 333mhz with Win2k Server SP4 which is on the second floor. My Asus is on the first floor.

[monnier]

So if I understand correctly, you can download 266MB via wireless to your computer, but when you computer then tries to send those 266MB back to some local server the wireless connection drops.

I recommend you check:
- the router's and your machine's logs.
- whether the wireless connection is also lost for other machines (i.e. is it
the whole wireless net that's down or just the connection with your
machine).
- if so, whether your AP freezes/reboots/crashes (i.e. whether it's just
the wireless or the whole wl500g).
- try to just save a big file from your machine to the remote share
(i.e. manually reproduce the step you think causes the freeze).
- try changing the mode of your AP between 11b, 11g-only, ...

My Thinkpad's Linux driver had a bug that froze the wireless connection but only when sending large amounts of data at max speed (and this with all the APs it's ever been connected to). I could download gigabytes of data at top wireless speed, and also upload gigabytes at top DSL speed, but uploading at top wireless speed. Your hardware and software is different, so it can't be the same bugs, but your problems don't necessarily have to do with the wl500g.

[Bunzzing]

So if I understand correctly, you can download 266MB via wireless to your computer, but when you computer then tries to send those 266MB back to some local server the wireless connection drops.

Exactly...



I recommend you check:
- the router's and your machine's logs.

The problem is that my AP, Laptop and Server are in the same subnet. The router is only used as a gateway to the internet. So copying a file after download to the server is traffic which doesn't pass the router. Also, checking my router's log is a bitch. But will give it a try.




- whether the wireless connection is also lost for other machines (i.e. is it
the whole wireless net that's down or just the connection with your
machine).

Hmm, I will test that as soon as I can borrow my neighbour's laptop. I have only one wireless computer so at the moment I can't really tell if the same problem occurs with other machines. But good point. Will definately test this.



- if so, whether your AP freezes/reboots/crashes (i.e. whether it's just
the wireless or the whole wl500g).

After I lost the wireless connection I plugged in my utp cable and I was able to ping the Asus. So the Asus doesn't completely crashes/freezes.



- try to just save a big file from your machine to the remote share
(i.e. manually reproduce the step you think causes the freeze).

Antiloop also suggested this on MSN. Will add this to my Test-list.



- try changing the mode of your AP between 11b, 11g-only, ...

At the moment the 54g Mode is set to AUTO with 54g protection. I can change it to 54g ONLY, 54g LRS (don't know what this means...) or 802.11b ONLY. 11b is totally out of the question because I have a 54g wireless nic.




My Thinkpad's Linux driver had a bug that froze the wireless connection but only when sending large amounts of data at max speed (and this with all the APs it's ever been connected to). I could download gigabytes of data at top wireless speed, and also upload gigabytes at top DSL speed, but uploading at top wireless speed. Your hardware and software is different, so it can't be the same bugs, but your problems don't necessarily have to do with the wl500g.

I just downloaded and installed Dell's latest driver for my wifi nic. Will do all the above tests and see what happens. Of course I will post my finding.

Thanx for helping

[Bunzzing]

Ok, performed the following 2 tests:

- File transfer of 500 mB .iso file from my wireless laptop to my locale server

After about 2 minutes the connection is dropped.

- After the connection was dropped I plugged in my utp cable and I was able to ping and access the Asus WL500g Access Point.

So this concludes in that the 500g has not crashed, only the wireless connection isn't working anymore. Second, it doesn't matter whether I download a file from the internet and copy it to the server thru wifi or internally copy a file to the server without using the internet. In both situations the wifi connection is dropped after a certain amount of data throughput.

[Bunzzing]

God must have heard my prayers....Uploaded the latest 1.8.1.7 to my Asus and downloade XP SP2 again to a network drive. At the same moment I pinged www.home.nl -t. Got 3 time outs out of hundreds. Everything went OK. After that I connected to my internal FTP server upstars and downloaded an 560 mB .iso file. This also went OK. Then I uploaded the same .iso file and that also went perfectly without any loss of connection. I'm a happy man. Will see how long this will stay. Good work to the guys at Asus. :)

So far, my problems are over, but will test it over the upcomming time.

Thanx to anybody who helped here at the forum.

[monnier]

The problem is that my AP, Laptop and Server are in the same subnet. The router is only used as a gateway to the internet. So copying a file after download to the server is traffic which doesn't pass the router. Also, checking my router's log is a bitch. But will give it a try.

By "router" I meant the WL-500g box (i.e. your AP).
I tend to forget that not everyone is using these boxes like I do, sorry.