can't connect to wireless

[stern11]

hello,

I'm having some issues with my home network. I recently purchased a Netgear WPN824 wireless router. My wireless network has my HP laptop (vista), a squeezebox remote, a wireless printer, and a tivo. My wired network has the squeezebox receiver and a vortexbox, which is a linux-based music server.

My problem is that my wireless devices can no longer connect to my router. The ethernet works fine and I can see the wireless networks with full bars, but it can't connect. The computer says it's not getting a response from the network. My work laptop also cannot connect to the network and my home laptop is able to connect to my neighbor's open network, so i know it is the router.

This happened a couple times and changing the broadcasting signal seemed to fix it. But, now, nothing will work.

I called netgear technical support and they had me try a variety of manual settings and resets, but still nothing worked. So, they think it is a firmware failure and that I need to send it in for a replacement.

I figured I would check here before I did that because this is actually the second time this has happened. I bought this new router because the same problem happened to my old one, which was a cheap officedepot/ativa model. I assumed it just had died after a couple years of regular use.

So, does this kind of problem sound familiar to anybody? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Let me know if you need more info/specs. Otherwise, I guess I'll just send it in...

thanks,
rob

 

[thiggins]

If none of your wireless devices are seeing the router, then the radio is dead or disabled.

 

[stern11]

sorry for not being clear. they do "see" the router (with full bars), but they can't connect to it.

 

[thiggins]

No, it's me who didn't read carefully, sorry.

First, reset the router to factory defaults if you already haven't.

Then disable all wireless security and try to connect.

Try setting your client's TCP/IP address info statically. Connect one of the laptops via Ethernet and let it get its TCP/IP settings. Then enter all that data manually in the wireless adapter's TCP/IP network properties, changing only the last IP address octet to something different. (Example: if IP address is 192.168.1.101, change it to
192.168.1.90.) Then try to connect again.

 

[stern11]

thanks!

I did the first two suggestions already without success. I will try to IP address changing idea when i get home tonight...

 

[thiggins]

What I'm having you do is not depend on having the router provide the IP address information, i.e. whether DHCP is working.

 

[stern11]

hi tim,

i'm sorry, but i'm not sure what you meant by your last post.

But, i tried to manually set a static IP address. I pulled the info from ipconfig at the command prompt. And, entered in to wireless adapter properties. But, still no luck.

Any other ideas?

thanks,
rob

 

[thiggins]

When you connect to a wireless router, the client first authenticates, then associates and then, if it is set to be a DHCP client (obtain IP address automatically), tries to get IP address info via DHCP.

I was trying to see if the DHCP lease was broken by having you set your client to already have valid IP address information.

At what point does the client say it's not getting a response from the network. And what is the exact message?

 

[stern11]

Ah, I understand. That makes sense.

So, when I got home today, the wireless network connected! This is great, but also frustrating because i have no idea why it didn't work for days. My other wireless devices also work fine now. Any thoughts on why it would stop and start working at random like that?

From memory, when it wasn't working, i would try to connect to a wireless network and almost instantly i would get a message that it couldn't connect because it wasn't getting a response from the network. I then had two options: troubleshoot for low wireless signals or connect to a different network. This would happen even if i was right in front of the router.

Let me know if you have any thoughts, otherwise, i'll post if it happens again with the exact message. Also, thanks for the advice on this.

rob

 

[thiggins]

Could be another network or cordless phone or microwave interfering. You should do a simple site survey.
How To Fix Your Wireless Network - Part 2: Site Surveying

 

[stern11]

Hi,
This was great. I think I have identified the problem, which I should’ve realized in the beginning!

I did a site survey using NetStumbler. I first realized that there are about 8 other networks using channel 6, so I switched to 1.

When I did the wireless coverage test, I saw some interference. I was getting big red noise bars (from zero to -100, lasting several seconds) intermittently with the green signal. So, after a while, I realized it was coming from my HTIB Samsung stereo. It has wireless rear speakers that operate on the 2.4 ghz frequency, which is the same as my router. So obvious! (this whole time I was blaming my squeezebox and forgot about the speakers).

So, I’m going to try to move my router to a spot around the corner. I may also try to put it in the basement, but I don’t know if that will help. I also am going to see if I can get rid of the wireless speakers altogether and just run a wire. Do you have any other suggestions? Should I invest in 5ghz or dual-band?

Thanks for your help! The site survey article was incredibly useful for a novice like me.

Best,
rob

 

[thiggins]

Glad you identified the problem.

The best approach is to eliminate the interference. Moving the router won't do anything because it's the clients that are having the connection problem due to interference.

You could try moving to 5 GHz. But you'd have to move everything and you'll have reduced range.

I'd say to connect up your rear speakers via wire or a wireless technique that doesn't use 2.4 GHz.