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Wild Wild Wireless Story
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MacLone
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Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Mx
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Jun 17, 2003, 11:04 PM
 
Hi.

As many others, have decided to change my old trusty wired ethernet for a brand new wireless stuff.
I own a mixed bag of PC, laptop and Macintosh so it took me a few days of investigating and deciding about which one was the best wireless ADSL/Cable Router. The problem here is that i have not much brands to choose from so i picked up the cheapest from the 3 brand i could get at store.
I have used the originad "b" Airport and a Linksys wireless routers from my friends both at close range (PC only or Mac only) without a problem.
Decided to buy an US ROBOTICS (USR8022) wireless access point, US Robotics laptop PCcard and an original Airport card for my G4.

My first hours of use went a nightmare trying to make my PC and laptop seen each other and then add my airport G4. I had a lot of incopatibility, dropped signals etc. until i decided to make a firmware upgrade to both AP and PCcard (PCcard to 54g). Now i can access my ADSL with my wired PC, wireless laptop and desktop G4 and share all with 128 WEP encryption on. This access point does not support appletalk but i could print to my HP Laserjet 6MP via IP printing both OS9 & 10. I don't own a second mac so i don't know if the lack of appletalk is going to be a
problem using OS9 or OSx file sharing between Macs.
Sounds good enough..? No, not really...Actually i was terribly disappointed about the lies every manufacturer tells you and the mixed success among wireless users.

I knew about the "more speed, less signal strength", the "50 to 150 feet inside range depending on your place" and the "adjust to 11Mb. only if your mixed 54g and 11b does not behave well" rules.

I took my laptop to the next room and signal dropped to 70%, plenty for internet and file sharing. Then i walked 21 feet away and signal dropped to 40% which was almost useless to browse and file share. Just 21 feet? it couldn't be true, so i walked around and to my last room upstairs about 30 feet away and my link and signal vanished from earth. Why just 20-30'? if my router was placed at top of my desk and my brick house has a lot of windows everywhere and no other 2.4Ghz. phone, thick
walls, excessive electric interferences etc.? I mean, i have planned the best position for my hardware from the beginning.

Soooo... I was wondering if you are having the same problem with other wireless brands or maybe its my cheap, low quality, high expectations, brand new and useless USRobotics hardware?
I would like to know about your wireless experiences and help me to make this thing work like i was hoping. (if that's possible)

P.D.
Ahhh..that's not all ...i need to reboot the router every 1 or 2 hours if not used wirelessly; I don't know why should i reboot my AP to get it working wirelessly again though my wired PC still gets signal and i can browse the internet at any time and my configuration is for never drop connections and reconnect automatically if dropped by my ISP; it is just a wireless drop out and not the reason for the weak signal.

Sorry for my poor english
Hope you can help this poor "Someday i'll be wireless i swear" guy.

Cheers!
     
Scarpa
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Jun 18, 2003, 01:47 PM
 
In my experience, any kind of WiFi is worthless for local filesharing.

On the other hand, any kind of WiFi is usually good enough to outrun a DSL or cable connection.

This means the "54Mbit" stuff is basically a waste of money since it's still too slow for filesharing and is way overkill for internet access.

I'm curious why you say Appletak isn't supported. WiFi gear only handles the physical layer of the network model, Appletalk is encapsulated in TCP/IP which would imply that the access point has nothing to do with it. Have you tested it?
     
ghporter
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Jun 18, 2003, 04:09 PM
 
Unless you're only passing a relatively small file now and then, it's usually worth your time to connect computers with a wire for real filesharing. Faster transfers, less repeated packets, and an overall more reliable connection make wired much better for lots of traffic.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
bbales
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: suburban Chicago
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Jun 19, 2003, 02:49 PM
 
I'm not sure by what you mean by "relatively small" file, but about once a week or so I connect my desktop and laptop wirelessly and transfer my 300-plus MB (7,000-files-plus) word-processing documents file from the desktop to the laptop so they both have the same file. I've never had it not work. It takes about 15 minutes, but it works fine. (I'd jump for joy if I had a way to sync the two files easily -- ie. not have to write over files that haven't changed in the past week.)

I'm just saying, it works fine! The only time I've connected the two via target mode was when I first got the laptop, so I could transfer tons of stuff from the desktop.
     
MacLone  (op)
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Jun 19, 2003, 02:56 PM
 
I'm curious why you say Appletak isn't supported. WiFi gear only handles the physical layer of the network model, Appletalk is encapsulated in TCP/IP which would imply that the access point has nothing to do with it. Have you tested it? [/B]
I am aware of what you are saying but the way apple talk works indeed needs an appletalk capable hardware. I have known this because i have used HP's external printer servers. (the ones than connect via paralell port and RJ-45) As far as i know if your router is not appletalk savvy then you can't do appletalk filesharing, just IP filesharing. Mybe i'm wrong but is what i have learned on the internet and testing. I don't own a second mac to test its appletalk filesharing; just tested my postscript printer and the lack of appletalk makes "laserwriter8" useless and i assume filesharing among macs would be the same problem.
     
MacLone  (op)
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Jun 19, 2003, 03:02 PM
 
Originally posted by GHPorter:
Unless you're only passing a relatively small file now and then, it's usually worth your time to connect computers with a wire for real filesharing. Faster transfers, less repeated packets, and an overall more reliable connection make wired much better for lots of traffic.
Yes, right now i have a full wired instalation and works great but there are cables around everywhere, from one room to another, from and to my backyard etc.
As you say wires are much better for heavier traffic but i just want to share my ADSL to my parents so i thought a wireless stuff would be great....actually, it wasn't.
     
Scarpa
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Jun 19, 2003, 07:17 PM
 
Originally posted by bbales:
I'm just saying, it works fine! The only time I've connected the two via target mode was when I first got the laptop, so I could transfer tons of stuff from the desktop.
I guess I wasn't clear. It works, but it's slow. For an occasional big transfer, or small files it's relatively painless.

The first thing I did with my wireless setup was move my video collection (not *all* is pr0n ) off to my linux box. I couldn't play anything over 2MB off of the share, I had to copy it locally to get smooth playback.
     
l008com
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Jun 19, 2003, 09:44 PM
 
My wireless gets very poor range, i have it going from a G4 tower to an iBook. Even from my bedroom to the kitchen is probably 20 feet max, form upstairs to downstairs, and sometimes i can't even get on at all. The advertised distances are WAY overrated.
     
GENERAL_SMILEY
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Jun 20, 2003, 08:05 AM
 
I think it all depends on local interference - I live a relatively low density (population wise) area, and we get pretty decent signal all over the house with Airport Ex- including in my basement studio, all three floors and quite a distance into the garden. (It is an old house with pretty thick stone walls as well.)

The only problems I have had is with inteference, for instance when the mobile phone (not cellular) was active near the base station - and that seems to have stopped now; also I think old style airport cards may cause problems - I can't really pin it down, but when the house is busy with other laptops with old cards in I find it very hard too SSH to our offsite server - especially from the dell with a Belikin 54G card.
     
   
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