Help!

[vespid81]

Hopefully someone help me out because i am going nuts here. I would be most grateful of any assistance i can recieve. I have a three computers in this massive house and they are all located in different places of course. one is at the very top floor while the others are in the basement which has an office and a den-like room. I own a Linksys WRT54G router which is in the den and connected to my primary rig as well as the modem. I have two Linksys WAP11's which are both set on repeating the MAC address of the router. One is on the same level as the Den and the office computer and the other is on the second level, right below the room with the bedroom computer. My connection is very intermittent and is sometimes great and most other times nonexistent. What can i do to get the wireless computers stable, they both have USB wireless adapters. One is a netgear product and the other is a intel product. I have been working on this situation for 8 months now, and no one is able to help. Thanks in advance for anyone's input.

 

[palmerg]

Can you provide the models of the two USB WiFi adapters you have? That might help too.

From the way you have explained it you have a mixed layout B/G. That's not normally a problem depending upon the settings of the WRT54G.

- I own a WRT54GS so I'm not certain the menus are identical but access the routers setup and make sure that under Wireless that the Wireless Network Mode is set to "Mixed" and not "G-Only" or "B-only".

- On the link sys products you might make sure that all products have had the latest firmware flash updates. The product manuals and the linksys website have good instructions on this. The manual is the best source.
The WAP11's come in several flavors, there's a generic WAP11, or a version 2.2 or a 2.8 all have different firmware updates. The WRT54G's latest firmware is 3.03.6. You can see this on the first page of each devices setup page.
- Next question is how are the WRT and WAP11's connected? Wired?
Lets start there

 

[palmerg]

Looked through the WAP11 manual and it appears from what you said that you may want to set up the network in a Point to Multi-Point mode (page 25 of on-line manual)

 

[kwebb]

No, you don't want to bridge. That is what point to multipoint would do for you. Basic, non WDS repeating is what you want but sounds like what your already doing. What is your signal strength AND your signal quality on the wirless nodes? Signal quality if many time signficantly more important that strength. If your using XP's utility you may want to see if Netstumbler will work with your client device. It will give you signal quality in db.

 

[riser]

Tomshardware did a nice little article on bridging all your APs together to create a nice little network. They may have ported that article over to Tomsnetworking though.
It basically walked you step by step to expand your network out by bridging your APs to one another resulting in small dead zones and a better signal.
Not much help at this point, but you might want to hunt that article down. I'd say they did it back in September/October of last year.

First, I'd try moving your APs so they're not right over your PC.

What kind of interference is in the way? You may want to find a new way of mounting the APs, lower, higher, maybe in a corner, or mount an AP on the ceiling of the floor below?
Move the things around and test that out if you haven't yet.

Someone should be able to direct to towards the amplifiers for your APs/Router.. maybe just on the Router to make sure the APs stay connected.

 

[vespid81]

ok the WAP11 both are verison 2.8 and i cant find anything on linksys website that will help me out in that department. ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pdf/wap11v28_ug.pdf this manual site for some reason isn't coming up. that is totally Linksys' fault for not properly supporting this product. the netgear usb adapter is WG121 and the intel one is the 80211b pro adapter. I thought about doing a bridge but that wouldn't make sense since there isn't another router upstairs. But if it allows me to get internet up there that would be great. I moved the router to where it is closer to the stairway, and i measured the distance between everything. The AP(wap11v2.8) is 27 feet from the router(WRT54G) now and with line of sight, and the upstairs AP(wap11v2.8) is about 28 feet without line of sight however there is open space for a signal to reach it, just a thin wooden door that is mostly open. and then the intel USB adapter is 13 feet directly above the AP(wap11v2.8) with line of sight. So i just dont understand what is going on... now i cannot even get my computers to connect to the network. I used netstumbler on both computers and the signal str is about 60 to 70. The only odd thing is that it reads the vendor of the router as (fake), whatever that means.but it seems the signal strength is there. I just am not understanding what is going on. Oh and both AP(wap11v2.8) are set in repeater mode, repeating the wireless mac address of the router. Thanks guys

 

[palmerg]

Ok, Here is the link for the <A HREF="http://www.linksys.com/download/firmware.asp?fwid=196" target="_new"> WAP11 v2.8 firmware download </A> but since it seems there haven't been any mods since the initial release forget about it, Sorry.
And you and kwebb are quite correct bridging with this config just won't work (thats what I get for trying to reason at 5:00 AM)since there ain't no router or network to bridge to.

This may be the problem but we will try to see if that is so.

I have two Linksys WAP11's which are both set on repeating the MAC address of the router.

Lets go over your setup step by step, more for me than you.
1. The WRT54G is in the basement, connected to the cable/dsl feed?
2. The computer there with WRT is connected via wire?
3. First WAP11v2.8 is in den (with WRT) connected via wire to the router(WRT)?
4. Second WAP11v2.8 is one floor up - pluged in to power but not connected to net via wire? It needs to be wireless?

The computer connections may be checked later. Let's talk about configuring the WRT-WAP-WAP first.


Legend: ---> = wired --@= wireless



SO it's Modem--->WRT--->1WAP(in den)--@2WAP (on second floor)

This most closely resembles page 20 of the WAP11 users Manual:
<b>Wireless Repeater</b> - When set to Wireless Repeater mode, the WirelessRepeater is able to talk to one remote access point within its range and retransmit its signal. See Figure 6-7.

So in WAP Setup:
-if the WRT is serving addresses
1. 1WAP obtains an IP automatically and AP Mode is Access Point
2. 2WAP obtains an IP auotomatically and AP Mode is Wireless Repeater - and the MAC address of 1WAP is entered in assocoiated dialog box

Try that and lets see what happens

 

[palmerg]

Oh also according to the WAP11 users manual WAPs in repeater mode are designed only to repeat signals from other WAP11 APs and only one WAP can be repeated. They are not designed to repeat the routers (WRT54G) signal and chances are that the (fake) signature is related to that somehow.