WIFI disconnecting apparently at random

[ebrinton]

I am continuing to have problems with the FIT2 WIFI periodically disconnecting.
This is a FIT-2 PC running Windows XP home (as shipped), e.g. s/n 090730-015, BIOS date is 3-18-09.
IRADS app note has been followed with the power saving mode => CAM, and Mulimedia/Gaming environment => enable.
When the failure occurs WIFI connectivity is lost.
The disconnection appears to occur randomly.
The connection may be up for days at a time without any troubles making debugging difficult.
The connection can be restored by going to the Wireless Connection Status dialog, support tab, and press the repair button.
These FIT2 units are to be located at remote locations where internet connectivity is critical.
Obviously If the WIFI is down, and the system is being accessed remotely, the link cannot be restored without sending an operator to reset it.
Is it unreasonable to assume a WIFI link can be maintained indefinitely?
Is there a method to automatically reset the WIFI link if it goes offline?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[irads]

Some things you could do to better understand the problem
- If you have another fit-PC2 see if the same problem occurs.
- Try the same with an external WiFi dongle.
- Check access point logs for any unusual network events.
- Try another AP.

If you wish to work around the problem, I suggest you make a script pinging the access point and repairing the WLAN on failure. If you do it using EventGhost you do not need to go too deep into automating network settings.

[ebrinton]

Thankyou irads,
I will try both aproaches in parallel.
Please advise if you have any informaiton on potential causes.
...

[irads]

I asked our R&D to try to reproduce this behavior.

[prpixel]

My wifi also has connection problems. Sometimes it works for hours and sometimes it drops the connection every few minutes. FITPC2 is located about 3 feet from the wireless router. It got so annoying, I switched to hardwired networking. I'm contemplating swapping the internal WIFI adapter with an intel unit.

[ebrinton]

We have installed a dos batch file which pings the AP and reapirs the FIT-2 WIFI connection if there is no ping response. The failures are also logged to a log file. The batch file uses devcon commands and is started every 5 minutes by Windows Task Scheduler. We have seen multiple incedents of no ping response and the batch file commands have sucessfully re-started the WIFI. This substantiates the idea that the failure is odccuring in the FIT-2 rather than the AP. The tests have been completed on two seperate FIT-2s at two different locations.

This is a reasonable temporay workaround, but we would like a more stable long-term solution. Specifically we would like to see the apparent problem with the FIT-2 WIFI fixed.

If anyone would like the text of this batch file let me know and I can post it in this forum.

[irads]

Please post the batch file so other users can use it until we come up with a more complete solution.

[irads]

A new RT3090 WiFi driver for Windows XP is submitted.
See http://www.fit-pc2.com/download/xp-driv ... 091001.zip
Our testing show no disconnects with this driver. Please try and post your experience.

[ebrinton]

Heres a bat file that pings and repairs a down WIFI connection.
Only for use on Windows XP, 2000, 2003 server becuase it uses "devcon"
Use Windows scheduler to execute the bat file (e.g. every 5 minutes).
Ping fail / repair incedents are logged to a file.
See remarks for details.
Test results of new driver posted to follow in another post.

REM make the folder "C:\GWR_oXXX\WiFi_Log\%filename%" or edit this file to match your destination log folder
REM this script requires that you download and install devcon on your XP, 2000, 2003 server machine
@echo off
REM Restart Wireless connection to force broadcast IP request.
REM Find Date and set filename format YYMMDD.log
@For /F "tokens=1,2,3,4 delims=/ " %%A in ('Date /t') do @(
Set All=%%D%%B%%C
)
SET filename=%All%.log
REM Test line to file
REM echo %date% - %time% **********---------**********>>"C:\GWR_oXXX\WiFi_Log\%filename%"
REM
REM Ping options
REM option-1; -n = number of times
REM option-2; 1 = number
REM option-3; ip adress
ping -n 1 192.168.1.20
REM Don't restart if ping successful.
if %errorlevel% EQU 0 goto end
REM If no response Log to file
REM a blank line to log file
echo. >>"C:\GWR_oXXX\WiFi_Log\%filename%"
REM Record Time and date to log file
echo **********---------**********>>"C:\GWR_oXXX\WiFi_Log\%filename%"
echo >> %date% - %time%>>"C:\GWR_oXXX\WiFi_Log\%filename%"
REM Record Ping status to log file
ping -n 1 192.168.1.20>>"C:\GWR_oXXX\WiFi_Log\%filename%%"
REM If no response to ping then repair the Wireless connection
REM We use "devcon" command supported only by Windows XP,
REM Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Server
REM find PCI device idfrom Windows command propt use:
REM C:\Documents and Settings\SG Administrator>devcon find pci\*
REM C:\Documents and Settings\SG Administrator>devcon find pci\*
REM PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8168&SUBSYS_816810EC&REV_02\4&672B976&0&00E0:
REM Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC
REM PCI\VEN_1814&DEV_3090&SUBSYS_30901814&REV_00\4&3AA0F23C&0&00E1:
REM 802.11n Wireless LAN Card
REM if devcon is not present in your computer, download DEVCON from
REM http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;311272
REM Also read article about devcon from this site
devcon restart PCI\VEN_1814*
:end

[ebrinton]

FIT-2 WIFI tests were based on the following:
Units were shipped with WiFi Driver: Ralink Technology Corp., Rev 1.4.2.0, date 3/24/2009.
WiFi Driver updated on 10/2/2009 : Ralink Technology Corp., Rev 1.4.7.0, date 9/5/2009 (from irads post...).

Recap of results with original (1.4.2.0) driver: WiFi disconnects apparently at random. Installation of batch file that pings the AP then repairs the WIFI connection using devcon command keeps the WiFI active. Repair incidents are 0-5 times per day. Observed incidents of no ping failures for up to 4 consecutive days, then on other days observed up to 8 ping / repair incidents. Could not correlate ping failures with any other activities. Similar occurrences were observed on three FIT-2 units at two different locations.

Results with new (1.4.7.0) driver: WiFi continues to have ping failures at similar incident rates. In this test the batch file is operating so it is not possible to observe if the WiFi connection has permanently failed (as was the case with the previous driver) or if it will repair itself. I will perform more tests if requested. It would be helpful to have some insight on how the new driver is supposed to have fixed the disconnection problem.