Wireless Connectivity Intermittent

[jdlessley]

This issue may be related to the thread titled Odyssey Client Compatability. I can't really tell.

Our bishops' storehouse managers are having a connectivity propblem. They have a wireless connection to the CCN in the building they share with Church Family Services. The wireless connection goes on and off every few seconds. They can't maintain a reliable connection for any period of time. They are the only ones using wireless. Family Services is cable connected.

They have had the Church provided computer for about three months. It is a Dell Optiplex with a Linksys adapter. When I first stopped by to help them with their connectivity issue it appeared to be line-of-sight interference and low signal strength. I moved the computer to a better location and the signal strenght improved and the connection was good for about a week. Then they started having the on-and-off connectivity problem again. The signal strenght is still excellent.

They have called the GSD several times to rectify the issue without any success.

I don't want to travel all the way to their location during their limited work hours without having something in mind to investigate.

Does anyone have any ideas?

JD

[The_Earl]

This issue may be related to the thread titled Odyssey Client Compatability. I can't really tell.

Our bishops' storehouse managers are having a connectivity propblem. They have a wireless connection to the CCN in the building they share with Church Family Services. The wireless connection goes on and off every few seconds. They can't maintain a reliable connection for any period of time. They are the only ones using wireless. Family Services is cable connected.

They have had the Church provided computer for about three months. It is a Dell Optiplex with a Linksys adapter. When I first stopped by to help them with their connectivity issue it appeared to be line-of-sight interference and low signal strength. I moved the computer to a better location and the signal strenght improved and the connection was good for about a week. Then they started having the on-and-off connectivity problem again. The signal strenght is still excellent.

They have called the GSD several times to rectify the issue without any success.

I don't want to travel all the way to their location during their limited work hours without having something in mind to investigate.

Does anyone have any ideas?

JD

What is there WAP hardware?

Does the linksys card have a removeable antenna?

Are you running LEAP, WAP, WEP, Odyssey Client?

Is this A, B, G, and at what speed?

My random ideas:

Linksys WAPs have strange lockup / drop behavior with the stock firmwares. If you have a blue linksys box, you might try a newer linksys firmware, or an after-market firmware like tomato. Other WAPs may have this problem, but I only know of the linksys problems.

If the antenna on the card has been damaged, vibration or movement might kill the signal such that it drops the connection before the client shows the change in signal.

If you can force a lower speed, and it works ok then, I would suspect the signal is still to weak.

Thanks
The Earl

[russellhltn]

Check for any equipment in the area that might be causing problems. I've seen microwave ovens mess things up when the signal is weak. Changing channels seemed to fix it.

[jdlessley]

They are using Odyssey Client. The WAP is a Cisco 1200 Series. The wireless adapter in the computer is a Linksys PCI G-band adapter.

Thanks for the thoughts. I hadn't thought about changing channels. This will get me looking into some outside influencers such as microwaves.

JD