Disaster strikes!

[Steve]

From the temperature and sweatiness in this room today, it looks like the weekend is shaping up to be hot, hot, hot!

This means laptop in the garden, surely?

Not if my wireless network can help it. Oh no, it's decided to randomly drop its connection, as of a couple of weeks ago. So, I can expect some fun in troubleshooting that before I can relax in the garden and scour the net for some weekend news to post up for all you wonderful people.

I'm not sure whether to blame my laptop's wireless, or the access point, and without any other wireless devices to play with, it'll be hard to pinpoint the problem. Oh joy.

Any suggestions?

[Lee H]

Ahhh the joys of dropping wireless signals hey

I had this issue and in the end I got the rj45 cables back out.

[Stoo]

blame it on the beer

[Steve]

blame it on the beer

I blame it on MI5 monitoring my activities, causing interference.

[Norky]

I blame it on MI5 monitoring my activities, causing interference.

No we're not. **Flees**

[Jonny M]

Someone else got the same idea as you and decided to set up a wireless network in your area?

[Lee H]

Kez.

Change the channel and see if that fixes it.

Or simply run netstumbler and find the "interfering" wireless network - I bet its got the standard admin/password as well as not many people change them

[Jonny M]

Bear in mind channels 1, 6, and 11 are the only ones which don't overlap another channel. As in, you can have 3 wireless networks, one on 1, one on 6, one on 11, with no problems, but have them on 1, 2, and 3, and you will get issues.

[Steve]

I had already tried all of the above but thanks.

It turned out to be AES encryption causing a few issues I think so I'm on TKIP now. Still WPA though, so I'm reasonably happy.

Oh, and there's a guy, across the road I think, has a laptop or something with a wireless card in, but that's it... I've not found any other access points within range of mine.

[Jonny M]

What AP are you using?

[Steve]

An Edimax model:
http://www.edimax.nl/html/english/pr...EW-7203APg.htm

It seems AES doesn't work at all. I have updated my Intel 2200BG drivers to support AES, but in WPA/WPA2 mode, I cannot acquire an IP address. However, in WPA1-TKIP, I can. :\

[Matt1eD]

Yup, this heat is horrible. I turned of my PC after aiming deskfans at stuff and adding extra fans with sides off it was still so hot.

[Nick]

Only really read the first post... I had this and it turned out it was the AES encryp giving me hassle and revalidating all the damn time... switched to TKIP and all was fine... try that?

[Steve]

Only really read the first post... I had this and it turned out it was the AES encryp giving me hassle and revalidating all the damn time... switched to TKIP and all was fine... try that?

AES just DOESN'T WORK. Can't remember if it ever did. In WPA or WPA2, AES won't let the machine acquire an IP, despite it being an "excellent" connection strength with the AP.

If I drop down the TKIP it works, but my data rates are all over the place. I'd rather use AES because it isn't supposed to have such a hit on throughput. I don't really want to use WEP either, because it's pants.

[Jonny M]

AES puts more load on the CPU of the access point. Chances are that Edimax one simply isn't good enough to run AES encryption.

[Steve]

Well it's pants at TKIP, that's all I know.