WLAN Connection speed A716 / Wl500g [Archive]

ceesmf

05-07-2004, 23:28

Antiloop,

In one of your topics you mentioned that your A716 only connects at 1 or 2 mb ; I have the same problem, although when I disable the wlan and insert a CF card (Symbol) it connects at full speed ( same AP/WEP keys)
To other AP's (cisco,linksys) I can connect also full speed
Other Wlan card's like Cisco PCM342 ,linksys 54 Mbit and Orinoco cards can also connect to Wl500g at full speed (beit 11 Mbit or 54 Mbit)

Only the combination A716 / Wl500g causes trouble (2 Mbit is too slow to play mp3 or read tomtom cards (I use the wl500g in my car together with usb hdd en A716 , the whole combo connects via wds to my "home" in order to download new music overnight ; probably the first mobile wl500g ?)

Antiloop

05-07-2004, 23:53

yes indeed, i don't have problems with other cards for instance PCCard (PCMCIA) the WLAN of my A716 connect without problems at 11mbit to my antique WL300(not G!!), the weird thing is when resetting the wl500g and my mypal is turned on it reconnects at 11mbit untill i disconnect and reconnect again. So out of that theory it seems something during startup or some negotiating whatever is causing the 2mbit problem

i also own a Asus WL110 card, but haven't tried it yet in my A716. And my A620 is at asus for mainboard replacement. IF i have time i'll try the wl110 in my a716 and we'll see at which speed it will connect

Antiloop

17-07-2004, 15:18

okay i've figured out how the A716 will connect at 11Mbps

you have to perform this command (set it as bootCmdX if you are using a Custom FW)

i've tested this with FW 1.8.1.3, are wireless settings are default in the WL500g

wl suprates 11

Definition:
suprates
Returns or sets the 11g override for the supported rateset
With no args, returns the rateset. Args are a list of rates,
or 0 or -1 to specify an empty rateset to clear the override.
List of rates are in Mbps, example: 1 2 5.5 11

ceesmf

17-07-2004, 22:03

ceesmf

17-07-2004, 22:05

sorry typo in fw must be 1.7.5.9-2

Antiloop

18-07-2004, 00:08

Hi Antiloop,
tried your solution (fw 1.8.5.2) but same problem
first connect 11mb (after reboot of both devices), after a re-connect only 1 or 2 mb
I think the problem lies in the A716, not the wl500g, as all other cards connect and reconnect with 11mb
I will try to get support from Asus

asus is already occupied with it... i'm testing it with them

are you sure the suprates was set correctly?

check it with

wl suprates

i've just discovered something weird..
when connecting to my other wl500g (that one had always been in WPA-PSK TKIP+AES mode, turned it back to test this)
IT PERFECTLY connects at 11Mbps!?!? without performing the wl suprates command..

this is very strange... i'll try to find out why now..

ceesmf

18-07-2004, 01:05

HI Antiloop
To make things worse , I have four WL500g's, 1 central as gateway, the others as accespoints and bridging to the central one, by using different SSID's you can have 4 "different networks " the suprates trick works on the wl500g in "gateway mode", it connects and reconnects at 11mb but refuses to authenticate after reconnecting, neither with the asus utility nor with cironds winc for pocketpc (wich seems to use the profiles, created by the asus utility). In accespoint mode still the some old story (1 or 2mb only),
I checked with "wl suprates" and it reported "11" ; so that's ok
When I switch off Wlan and insert my Symbol CF card, no problem at all
Because of the brdiging I can only use WEP, WPA is not supported (yet?)

Antiloop

18-07-2004, 01:32

which channel are u using btw?

i did a strange discovery..

Antiloop

18-07-2004, 01:37

okay

when using those channels:

channel 1 A716 connects to WL500g at 2 mpbs (sometimes at 1mbps)
channel 2 A716 connects to WL500g at 2 mbps
channel 3 A716 connects to WL500g at 2 mbps
channel 4 A716 connects to WL500g at 2 mbps (sometimes even 5mbps)
channel 5 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps (sometimes at 5mbps)
channel 6 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps (drops back immediately to 2mbps)
channel 7 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps
channel 8 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps
channel 9 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps
channel 10 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps
channel 11 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps
channel 12 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps
channel 13 A716 connects to WL500g at 11mbps

when quicktesting some findings with my WL300(NOT G!)
channel 1 A716 connects to WL300 at 11mbps
channel 6 A716 connects to WL300 at 11mbps

can you please try this out if this works with your A716 ?

ceesmf

18-07-2004, 08:12

As usual I picked for no reason the worst .... 6
(for all wl500g's because of the bridging)

will let you kow

ceesmf

19-07-2004, 11:17

Hi Antiloop

Here are my testresults

Channel 10 and 13 : no association at all, with and without wep
Channel 6 (gateway mode and Ap mode) first connect 11mb, after reconnect 2mb or 1 mb
Channel 1 (gateway mode ) Most of the time 11mb, sometimes 2mb or 1 mb
Channel 1 (ap-mode) 2- or 1mb

All tests were carried out with all Wl500g's bridged in WDS mode and in non-bridged mode, A716 within 2 meters of Wl500g

Also switching on or off of the 54g protection did't change anything

Strange thing is dat only the combination Wl500g /A716 seems to have problems

With my A716 I can associate to whatever AP without problems; tested with Linksys WRT54G and Cisco AP342

All my other wireless card's ; Orinoco,Cisco,Linksys and Asus connect to the WL500g in every mode en speed

Weird situation indeed

Antiloop

19-07-2004, 12:53

hm veryvery weird..

allthough WRT54g should give the same results

i've just quicktested the WRT54g with A716

channel 1 = connect at 11Mbps
channel 6 = connect at 11Mbps

this is very odd.. i don't have any explanations anymore atm

ceesmf

30-07-2004, 14:11

Hi Antiloop

Today I had some time to perform some more tests

I installed a WL107G as a client adapter in a XP machine and connected to a WL500g running in AP mode and WDS enabled and connected to another WL500g
XP shows connecting speed of 54 Mbits; then I connected the A716; same old problem; only a 2Mbits connection

Next step was configuring the WL107G as an AP (special mode) still the A716 only connects at 1 or 2 Mbits
This all shows clearly to me the problem is not a WL500g related on, but lies within the A716 firmware

Any news form Asus on this topic ?

Antiloop

30-07-2004, 14:22

Antiloop

05-08-2004, 12:42

no news yet,

though i've done some testing too, when using a Linksys WRT54g for test and i picked channel 6

it connected at 11Mbps for a few secs and dropped back to 2mbit

when picked channel 11 it worked perfectly at 11Mbps

so it looks like my environment has effect on the performance of the A716 WLAN

last thing i want to test is to hook up the WRT54g somewhere else than at my place too see if it drops to 2Mbps too when using channel 6

update:

i've been testing my A716 at another place with the linksys wrt54g, also at that place signal drops from 11 to 2 when using channel 6

and to verify it wasn't only my A716 i've used another A716 (which is a few weeks old at this moment of writing produced in July-2004, mine is produced in May-2004) the new one does exactly the same

it connects at 11mbit and then drops to 2mbit

ceesmf

06-08-2004, 11:50

Hi Antiloop

Did some testing on wrt54g too, indeed most of the time connection drops to 2 or 1 mbit, although i had some stable connections at 11mbits, once connected at 11 mbits it stays connected at that speed, used channels 9 and 13.
I also did some testing on my Cisco AP342 and connection is always 11 mbit, with or without WEP, 64 and 128 bit, on all channels, both with long and short preamble, so it is possible
Could it have anything with the broadcomm chip, as far as i know, used in both the WL500G and the WRT54G ?
No comment from Asus yet ?

ceesmf

11-08-2004, 20:28

Antiloop

11-08-2004, 21:37

Hi Antilloop

Today I could finally lay my hand on the WL-HDD ,btw great machine, and guess what, the A716 connects , even at channel 6, with 11 mb, beats me, I'm quit sure the WL-HDD is using the broadcomm chip too,

I rearranged the whole sysstem to channel 10 and now the A716 connects always at 11mb

Still no solution from Asus yet, allthough the present situation is workable, i still like to solve the problem

OT: can you make some pics of the inside of the WL-HDD or is it warranty sealed?

anyway it's strange though..

and may i ask what you've paid for it? and where you got it in holland

ceesmf

12-08-2004, 08:01

Antiloop,
I can do that after the weekend, bought it without hdd, so "no seal" got it from Mycom, most shops of them stock them now (afak the only in the Netherlands) paid 129 excl HDD, the USB (2.0 !) port automatically copy's the content of a memory stick to the hdd, every time to a subsequent directory, guess you guys can transform it to a "real" usb port
The user interface is almost identical to the wl500g in AP mode, except for some changes for access control of the HDD

Antiloop

12-08-2004, 08:14

nice.. can you make some pics of the UI too?

also weird price 129,- we even don't sell it for that price.. and we are normally more expensive than mycom

price should be approx 105,- at this moment

ceesmf

16-08-2004, 12:25

Antiloop,

Here are the photo's
seems I can only attach one at a time

ceesmf

16-08-2004, 12:36

next,
Since yesterday, the A716 refuses to connect to either the wl500g and the Wl-hdd with WEP enabld, even after a hard reset. Connection without WEP, no problem

Antiloop

16-08-2004, 14:23

next,
Since yesterday, the A716 refuses to connect to either the wl500g and the Wl-hdd with WEP enabld, even after a hard reset. Connection without WEP, no problem

very strange?? haven't had any of this issues yet (atm i'm owner of 2 A716's)
does this happen with other AP's too?

Holo

21-08-2004, 06:29

ceesmf

Re: WL-HDD
I've been waiting for these to come out...
Would you mind answering a couple of questions?
What is the size and weight of the unit?
Does it have a built in battery?
What voltage does it run off?
Is there an easily accessable on off switch?
Is connection pretty much instantaneous at switch on?
I can't find a listing for the WL-HDD anywhere in the world except the Netherlands???
Comptech World (http://www.comptechworld.nl/index.php/3,cid--78?profs_Session=127e40b9e8c5bb1f31d9faa7f17da02e)
MyCom 40GB (http://silverapp1.mycom.nl/MyCom/Store/productdetailedinfo.do?productID=71394&productType=1)
MyCom 60GB (http://silverapp1.mycom.nl/MyCom/Store/productdetailedinfo.do?productID=71407&productType=1)
Do you know of any English sites that might ship to Australia?

Thanks
Steve

ceesmf

21-08-2004, 08:48

I searched a long time too , till I found Mycom stock them (Comptech not !)
AS you can see from the photo, pretty small, slighty bigger than the 2,5 inch harddisk, it runs on 5V, 2A adapter, I use it in my car on a Ipaq adapter no problem, sure Mycom will ship to Australia against costs, though it should be available soon everywhere
Bought mie without HDD (E 129)
You can swith it off via the webinterface, all switches are at the front,
power on by recycling the power or by the switch; nice if you do'nt use your car for a long period as it will drain the battery after 1 to 2 weeks
Only problem I found, when connected both wired and via WDS , your whole network performance goes down, which is logical, has even it's own DHCP server build in

Holo

22-08-2004, 04:42

Thanks ceesmf!

Much appreciated!
I've done a few enquiries with some Asus dealers in Australia and I am waiting to hear back from them - else I'll try Mycom. I couldn't find a listing for the bare unit on the Mycom site but that doesn't matter too much I guess.
Just making sure...
No built-in battery? Yes?
It can be used as a stand-alone wireless harddrive - no access point required? Yes?
Typically, how are you using yours?
Can you load files and play MP3s directly from it?
My use would be to have a heap of PDFs files on it - 6 to 10GB - to access from it from both desktop and PDA - would this be what it is designed for?

Thanks
Steve

ceesmf

22-08-2004, 10:51

Hi Holo,

no, unfortunetely no battery, and also no space to add one,
Its , at your choice, an AP and bridge at the same time
I even managed to run my tomtom navigator maps from it albeit a little bit slow for that.
I have mesured the start-uptime, but it's less then 10 seconds
I do the same wirh mp3's ' in the neighbourhood of my house I can upload / download files, using the wds link to my asus wl500G, it reconnects automatic when I return in the neighbourhood, you have to give your ipaq a fixed ip and also the wlhdd, although it has it own dhcp server, it will conflict with your regular dhcp server