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Wireless router goofiness...

post #1 of 6
3/24/04 at 3:58pm
Thread Starter 
Hi all-

My new laptop has pushed me into the fun world of wireless networking. While I have a ton of wireline net experience, wireless is a new thing to me. That said, I am seeing behaviour on my wireless router that I feel is considerably off.

I have an SMC barricade wireless router, the grey one w/4 port hub and 2 antenna. Well... my laptop is literally 6 inches away from it, antenna are both pointing straight up, and I am getting a "fair" connection. What? Its on the long range B/G auto switching setting, using WEP. Nothing else fancy going on. No other networks in the area that my card can pick up. There are no cordless phones or microwaves running. The router also runs very warm on its underside. Is that normal? The router is sitting on my desk, by my old PC and canon i80 in the charger, but none of that is on right now. I think, this close to the router, I should be getting full signal.

What do you guys think?

Eric

I am concerned for the heat and the weak signal both being present.
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post #2 of 6
3/25/04 at 12:26am
Something you can look at is the power mode of the Intel adapter. The Dell one that I was using had two modes - Low Power, Normal. When using it in low power mode the throuput was greatly reduced even when in close proximity to the router. From what I read, the Intel card should support 5 power saving modes.
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post #3 of 6
3/25/04 at 11:13am
Thread Starter 
Hey Manny-

New bios seems to have corrected a reported signal issue, or worse. So that looks good.



I am VERY concerned for the heat issue though. Anyone have any ideas, how hot do your WAPs get?

Eric
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post #4 of 6
3/25/04 at 12:40pm
My WRT54g got pretty hot when stacked up ontop of my 4-port hardwired linksys.. One of the FCC stickers' glue was melted and the sticker came off the bottom of the unit. They tend to get pretty toasty, but nothing horrible happens to them that I've noticed yet.
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post #5 of 6
3/25/04 at 3:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricT
Hey Manny-

New bios seems to have corrected a reported signal issue, or worse. So that looks good.



I am VERY concerned for the heat issue though. Anyone have any ideas, how hot do your WAPs get?

Eric
100 TX switches typically generate some heat. You mentioned that you had a lot of experience with wired nets, how does the wap compare to a 100TX ethernet switch??
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post #6 of 6
3/25/04 at 3:26pm
Thread Starter 
Hey WW

This guy is definately on the higher end of the heat spectrum, but not unreasonable. It is a radio transmitter, after all. It was the wierd signal reporting that was causing concern, and the heat plus the lack of signal when the units were inches away made me think it might be defective. I also turned off the firewall feature which cooled it down, but that is going back on once I am done doing what I am doing.

However, that turned out to be more of an intel 2200 driver issue, combined with new asus bios and lower level hw drivers. After patching up all those, the signal seems much more reasonable.

I have yet to patch the router up to the latest firmware. If there is a more efficient code base, what would cut down on CPU overhead and hence cool it off. Assuming they didnt add in more features... it might help! Who knows.

Eric
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