Trouble with T60 and new Atheros 11/a/b/g/n drivers

[PitS]

Hi,

i recently used the update from Lenovo which offered new WLAN drivers.
After installing them networking over WLAN is a mess. It's slow as surfing via a phone line.

After restarting a couple of minutes speed is o.k., but a few minutes later it drop back to the old speed.

I tried to fix it by disabling power saving modes for the WLAN, but this didn't help.

So i would like to try disabling 802.11n from my wireless card (probably it's a sync problem between AP and the Atheros chipset.) But the wlan setting can't be disabled.


Now does anyone have a solution ?

Kind regards
Peter

[Marin85]

But T60 doesn´t come with a factory installed n-capable wifi card? Have you installed your own n-capable Atheros card? You can change various settings (incl. n-operating mode) under Device Manager -> Network Adapters -> Your wifi card. Since your problem appeared after updating the driver, I would suggest you rolling back to a version that works for you instead of "tweaking" anything (except for the power settings, which tweak even with a properly working driver might be useful).

Marin

[PitS]

The update manager installed the Atheros 11/a/b/g/n drivers. The card is built in since purchasing the T60.

So i think i'll do some driver rollback.

Thanx for your help
Peter

[Marin85]

Which driver version have you been using before? I´m asking this because I remember that I swapped back my Intel card instead of the Atheros one due to noticeable performance and signal strength decline under Vista. Unlike in XP and Linux, the signal strength drops from excellent to fair although there are "only" two walls and about 3 meters direct distance from my router. This has affected the wifi performance by too far, so I put back my Intel card which gives me excellent signal strength. Hence I believe it is some issue with the driver for Vista (not the OS itself). However, my issue wasn´t so bad as what you describe in your original post. Since you doesn´t seem to have had any problems with the previously installed driver, I was wondering what was its version.

Thanks

Marin

[PitS]

Hi

the earlier version of the device driver for the atheros card was: 6.0.3.94
This was working fine, also signal strength was excellent.

The update put in the latest version 7.4.2.134 which wasn't working good anymore. Signal strength with this driver version is also excellent but the performance is poor.

I decided to switch back to the older version (which currently seems to be working o.k. as before).

Kind regards
Peter

[Marin85]

Vielen Dank! Mine was 7.3.1.127, so I guess this explains some things As an old wisdom says, "never touch a working system".

Grüße

Marin

[Kaz]

Also rolled back driver to 6.0.3.94 from 7.4.2.134 this past Dec. after 8 days of signal strength issues. I achieve "very good" signals again in areas that the latest driver was only offering a "low" signal. Will not attempt to upgrade again. FYI, my T60 (see signature) is N capable and connects to my neighbor's DLINK N router at 300 Mbps.

[Marin85]

Is version 6 of Atheros driver still available on Lenovo website? If yes, where?

Thanks,

Marin

[crazyfrog]

Version 6.0.3.94 driver is still available at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-66449

But I doubt it is a driver problem. I have two T60p's. Both of them have Atheros ABGN wireless card and the latest version 7 drivers (64-bit Vista and 32-bit XP) installed. They all work fine.

Have you guys upgraded Access Connections to the latest version after upgrading wireless driver?

BTW, the latest Access Connections looks great, but it takes much longer time to load. So if you hate a bloated AC, don't upgrade.

[Marin85]

I don´t use Acess Connections anymore because I don´t have so much profiles to manage (actually only 2 as of now), hence really no need for additional software on my ThinkPad which is currently overbloated anyways. I let Windows manage my connections and it seems to do pretty good job with this.

My card is only a/b/g, no n-draft, this probably explains the different behavior with the latest drivers. I also believe that even among the current Lenovo/IBM Atheros a/b/g cards there are differences in the chip even though all of them are labeled the same way AR5212. This would explain why users with the "same" card observe different behavior with the same driver versions (not to mention Linux...).

Anyway, thanks a bunch for the link. I´ll try that out later, during the weekend when I have more time.

BTW, I have never used any of the new Lenovo programs with the new Vista look. My driver backup, which I use whenever I have/want to reinstall Vista, only included the older classic versions. Indeed, the new ones don´t work very good for me (incl. taking longer to load, I don´t like that).

Cheers,

Marin

[kohai]

Thanks for this thread! I was having painful speed on my new linksys WRT610n. I downgraded to the driver mentioned in this thread and I'm back to normal surfing speeds! Dial-up speed was killing me.

My setup: Win XP, T60

[Marin85]

I just noticed that the above link is for XP. Is anyone aware of a similar link for the Vista driver?

Thanks,

Marin

[r. aster]

Resurrecting this old thread to verify that driver version 7.4.2.134 definitely causes problems on my T60: after suspend, Internet throughput drops from 10+ mbps to about 110 kbps. A windows connection repair fixes the problem temporarily.

Version .134 is the current one offered by System Update, so beware. Version 7.4.2.184 is available from the device driver matrix and seems to fix the problem for real.

RA