Issues with WL-500gP

[ArcherB]

I'm just received a 500gPremium yesterday and hooked it up as soon as I got it. It's running the default Asus 1972 firmware. Everything went smooth, but I'm having two issues:

The first and the most annoying is that the hard drive keeps disappearing. I hooked up a USB 80GB HDD. It works fine for a while, but then disappears. I have to unplug it from the router and plug it back in before it is recognized. I don't have this problem when the drive is plugged into a PC.

The second problem is newsgroup download speed. When running my old WRT54G with DD-WRT, I received download speeds of 800+Mbps. With the 500gP, my download speeds max out around 140Mbps and average about 35Mbps. What on earth could be going on here?

Thanx for any suggestions.

[fsmik]

Hello,

I did also buy a wl-500gp in feb. and did upgrade from asus firmware version 1.7.6.9 to 1.9.7.2.

After the upgrade I did offen loose connection to the USB port used for a storage ( in my case a USB stick).
The tcp/ip connection to the internet and also to the router were very bad. Between 5 and 10 % packages loss.

Did then downgrade to version 1.9.7.0 and it is working perfect.
I have connected a USB printer, USB stick, two on LAN and two on WLAN. I am using the download master, FTP and SAMBA share

/fsmik

[Brandy65]

Hi,
i also downgraded to 1.9.7.0 from 1.9.7.2 since there seem to be more problems with the newer version.
But i never saw my USB HDD disappear even on the newer firmware; i use a 80 GB Notebook HDD without external power supply.
Brandy

[QMax]

After some hrs finally I'm able to work properly with my WL500gP with original Asus 1.9.7.2 firmware.
All works fine, FTP server, routing, wireless, port forward, dwn manager... but I have problems with the connected HDD. It worls fine as storage for FTP server and download manager, but when I try to connect to this disk from my network it's really SLOOOOOOOOW, about 3hrs to copy to a 100mbps wired PC a 700MB file....

Anyone with the same bad experience ?
Could a downgrade to 1.9.7.0 fw solve the problem ?

Thanks, Max

[fsmik]

Hi,

Try to test your network connection.

ping -t 192.168.1.1
result should be around 1 ms response time and no packages loss

ping -t "an ip-adr on the internet"
result should be a stable response time and no packages loss.

If this test does not finish with the expected result, then try to downgrade. You can always upgrade.
evt. save your configuration settings before changing to the firmware.

I my case, I did not get the expected result running 1.9.7.2. After the downgrade 1.9.7.0, everything was OK

/fsmik

[QMax]

Thanks fsmik for your reply.
Situation here is much more complicated. Ping from wired pc are really fast (0mS with 0% packet loss, 3mS from a wireless PC with 0% packet loss), but if
I put a file on the shared USB disk connected to WL-500gP strange things happens. All these test are done using an 8Mb file:

From HDD to wired PC and reverse: about 5 mins
From HDD to wireless PC and reverse: about 3 seconds
From wired PC to wired PC and reverse: about 3 seconds
From wireless PC to wired PC and reverse: about 5 mins

Don't know what else to try...

About downgrade, I've read that 1.9.7.2 fixed a bug in 1.9.7.0 that doesn't let to upgrade using web interface.... maybe a downgrade to 1.9.6.9 is better....

Max

[fsmik]

Hi Max,

I do not know a solution of the transfer problem from a wired PC to the USB-disk.
The problem does not point directly to it, but I expect that you have tried to use another switch port and tried different settings of the nic in your PC
(100/full and auto speed/duplex).

concerning firmware upgrade. I did run with 1.9.7.0 for some weeks without any problems. Did then upgrade to Olegs firmware 1.9.2.7-7f though the 1.9.7.0 web-interface and that did succed the first time. I did not see the upgrade problem mentioned by Asus and others.

NB: Olegs firmware is much more funny to use but it requires a little linux knowledge and DM is missing.

/fsmik

[QMax]

Hi fsmik
I don't think this problem could be related to my NICs settings, because all works fine moving files between 2 wired PC, connected throught WL500.
I suppose I'll do my next attempt downgrading to 1.9.7.0 (thanks for infos about this rel), then I'll move to Oleg's firmware... but I'm a bit scared, cause my experience with linux is limited...

Max

[QMax]

YES!
All problems solved downgrading to 1.9.7.0.
Next step will be an upgrade to Oleg's FW.
Just a question, is there an app to replace original Asus Download Manager ?

Thanks for your help.

Max

[fsmik]

Hi Max,

If everything is working fine with 1.9.7.0, you should maybe not change to olegs firmware.
You will loss the DM and need to learn a little about linux to configure e.g. the SAMBA share(s).
Please search this forum for a replacement of DM.
I did not find any good replacement for DM. Bittorrent can be used for downloading some files but not all.
Please let me know if you find something good.

BR.
fsmik

[QMax]

A collateral problem to this downgrade is with eMule.
Now after a couple of hrs with eMule running on a PC wired to WL500, the NIC here switch every 5 secs in an infinite loop between the disconnected to connected status. No way changing cfg in eMule to reduce connections. To fix I have to reboot PC.
Naturally the same configuration works fine and I have no problems at all with the NIC if I connect directly to my modem instead of WL500gP.

Max