Any tricks to help me connect at 54MB?

[Rick Stevens]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> On 5/6/05, Rick Stevens <rstevens at vitalstream.com> wrote:
> 
>>Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>   To improve our network reliability we upgraded our router to a
>>>newer LinkSys double antenna device and added a wireless access point
>>>in the living room instead of using the an internal PCI D-Link card
>>>that had caused us so much trouble at that remote location. I'm now
>>>getting much better throughput between the router and the equipment in
>>>the living room which is great. We set that network up as 802.11g to
>>>get the performance. The router and the access point are set to
>>>802.11g only.
>>>
>>>   However, my son's FC2 machine is still using a 802.11g internal
>>>card and is running with ndiswrapper. (DWL-510G) I cannot get this
>>>card to connect to the new network. I've changed the ESSID on the new
>>>network so I changed it on the card. The card sees the network using
>>>the command 'iwlist wlan0 scanning' and reports back the correct new
>>>ESSID. The ifcfg-wlan0 file has new IP addresses in it, along with the
>>>new ESSID. It also has an entry called Bitrate which is set for
>>>54Mb/S.
>>
>>I don't know how reliable the bitrate settings are--especially for an
>>ndiswrapper driver.  I'd leave that off or set it to "auto".
> 
> 
> Set to 'auto' I never get more than 11Mb/S. If I set the network up
> for 802.11g only then the device won't connect.
> 
> 
>>>   I'd send the config file but the machine's not on the network so
>>>it's a bit of work.
>>>
>>>   Nothing I've tried so far allows this device to connect. I haven't
>>>tried lowering the network to 802.11b speeds and testing as I need the
>>>g level throughput.
>>>
>>>   Any ideas about how to get this beast going?
>>
>>Can you run the startup script and then do an "iwconfig wlan0" and
>>verify that all of the settings got there?
> 
> 
> The 54Mb/S setting doen't make it. Even when I choose that the setting
> still shows up as 11Mb/S.
> 
> I've set the router to now allow bot 11b and 11g. It gets the device
> connected but slows down transfers between other machines. I'm
> disappointed. Bummer.

In any 802.11g network, ANY 802.11b node will degrade the entire network
to 11Mbps.  Sorry.

(I'm in Boston until Friday...so I'm going to be VERY slow in
responding...you're lucky I still watch this stuff!)
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-       "I'd explain it to you, but your brain might explode."       -
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