Wireless Problem

[Tom Emerson]

Bryce, you turned on a light-bulb for me.  My rapidly aging, dim memory 
just regurgetated something pertinant:

George, any 2.4 GHz devices around the house, other than the WAP?

During lower bandwidth usage, the radio bandwidth occupied by the WAP & 
NIC exchange will be as narrow as the radios are capable of.  (not that 
unlicensed wireless network gear is always all that "clean" with it's use 
of spectrum!)

During high network bandwidth traffic, the radio bandwidth "spreads out", 
gets wider (this is easy to see if you have a spectrum analyzer handy!).  
This "wider" radio signal can interfere and be interfered with by devices 
operating on adjacent channels, or devices operating on the same channels 
(even spread spectrum radios, when in close proximity, like across the 
living room).

If you have any other wireless devices around the home, turn them all off, 
see if the problem persists.

We've seen several instances of 2.4 gig wireless telephones whacking 
wireless network devices.  Typically the sympton is really quite odd, 
looking more like an intermittant hardware failure or as you are thinking 
bus interupt contention issues.  Check for interference ...

Oh, another thing, some wireless cards, you can increase their radio power 
output levels, same for some WAP.  Don't do it, this increases adjacent 
channel interference, increases it a lot.  (and makes really nasty 
out-of-band noises).

 - tom e.
----------

On 14 Jul 2002, Bryce C wrote:

Here's an interesting one.  Not expecting any answers but when the power
was switching on and of again, my WAP was not on a UPS and so when it
cycled, my 2.4Ghz phone rang.  Only it.  Yes I know the both run in the
same unregulated airspace but It was still quite odd.


On Sun, 2002-07-14 at 19:52, James Durham wrote:
> Is it possible these two cards are just set too close in the computer? I know 
> I had a problem with TV reception when I had it plugged in near my Video 
> cards. I moved it a couple PCI slots over and saw a drastic improvement.
> 
> On Sunday 14 July 2002 06:41 pm, George Toft wrote:
> > I apologize for not being clear.  The MP3's are being played on the
> > local workstation through the sound card.  I also have a TV card
> > (Hauppage WinTV), and when I went to watch the Diamondbacks tonight, my
> > network QOS went to hell.  In summary, whever I play MP3's or use the
> > WinTV card (which outputs sound through the sound card), the wireless
> > card starts dropping packets.
> >
> > Possible interrupt conflict?
> >
> > George
> >
> > Bryce C wrote:
> > > Besides copying them to your HD locally, no.  I only have my personal
> > > experience to give.  I have found that often, mp3 playing programs are
> > > actively streaming the audio the entire time.  This means tremendous
> > > amounts of traffice because every second, roughly 128Kb has to be
> > > transferred and no matter what you say or the 802.11b rating is, your
> > > not going to get 11Mbs because that's megabits and TCP/IP is, as far as
> > > I know, the most inefficient protocol in use.
> > >
> > > On Sun, 2002-07-14 at 16:45, George Toft wrote:
> > > > I wish I were normal - but then life would be boring.
> > > >
> > > > I just set up a wireless network using a Linksys WMP11 (PCI card) and a
> > > > WAP11.  I get clear communication under normal conditions:
> > > > wlan0: 34. 53. 0% loss
> > > > wlan0: 36. 54. 0% loss
> > > > wlan0: 34. 53. 0% loss
> > > > wlan0: 34. 52. 0% loss
> > > > wlan0: 34. 53. 0% loss
> > > > wlan0: 38. 57. 0% loss
> > > > wlan0: 34. 52. 0% loss
> > > > wlan0: 36. 55. 0% loss
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > When I play MP3's using xmms, I get packet loss:
> > > > wlan0: 30. 46. 0% loss
> > > > wlan0: 32. 48. 5% loss
> > > > wlan0: 26. 41. 6% loss
> > > > wlan0: 34. 52. 8% loss
> > > > wlan0: 30. 47. 5% loss
> > > > wlan0: 36. 54. 5% loss
> > > > wlan0: 34. 51. 8% loss
> > > > wlan0: 34. 52. 10% loss
> > > > wlan0: 34. 52. 5% loss
> > > > wlan0: 36. 56. 5% loss
> > > > wlan0: 32. 49. 1% loss
> > > >
> > > > What you are looking at is the interface (wlan0), link quality, signal
> > > > level, and packet loss from my workstation to the WAP.
> > > >
> > > > Does anyone have a suggestion how I can listen to MP3's and not have
> > > > packet loss?
> > > >
> > > > George
> > > > ________________________________________________
> > > > See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't
> > > > post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> > > >
> > > > PLUG-discuss mailing list  -  PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> > > > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> > >
> > > --
> > > Bryce Chidester
> > > Network Administrator
> > > CoBryce Communications
> > > Bryce AT BryceCo DOT Net
> > > http://www.bryceco.net
> > >
> > > ________________________________________________
> > > See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't
> > > post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> > >
> > > PLUG-discuss mailing list  -  PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> > > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> 
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