General Wireless Networking Question

[Tõnis]

I recently got a Netgear wireless router. It works well with my 3000 N100 and my R61, except for one pesky problem: each time the Thinkpad comes out of standby, a bubble message appears, stating that the connection has little or no connectivity, and I have to have Windows repair the connection in order to get back on line. On the other hand, the 3000 N100 comes out of standby and reconnects by itself, no problem, without this extra repair step. My cable ISP told me to (using device manager) go into the power management tab under the properties for my Intel Wireless WiFi Link and to uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power." I did this, and the problem seems 60% better. Now the R61 reconnects fast by itself around 60% of the time, but the rest of the time it's back to the previous process. The other option seems to be to leave this box checked and to also check another box which says "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby," however this option comes with a warning, which states that "allowing this device to bring the computer out of standby may cause this computer to periodically wake up to refresh its network state." Is my otherwise superior R61 inferior to the 3000 N100 in this regard or am I missing something in my network settings or configuration?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Tony

[Marin85]

If you use Lenovo Power Manager, you may want to check out the advanced power settings (Fn + F3 -> Manage Settings -> Advanced Power Settings). The wifi might be set to Maximum Power Saving even for the case that the AC is plugged in. Try this out and post back if this has solved the problem.

[Marin85]

Also, if you are not the only user connecting to the router, you may want to check out if there are both users set with static ips (for example if using a torrent client) and users with dynamic ips. If so, this may cause an ip conflict (hence the necessity to repair the connection) with a machine resuming from standby and trying to connect using an "old" invalid ip, i.e. an ip assigned to another pc in the meanwhile.

Hope this helps

Marin

[GomJabbar]

In my Netgear router configuration, when I set up the WPA-PSK encryption passphrase, there is a Key Lifetime setting. It seemed to me that setting this to the maximum value accepted worked best for me. I believe the maximum value I could enter was something like maybe 10 hours (expressed in minutes).

What Marin85 said about trying to connect to a stale ip address makes sense. You can try setting a manual IP address for each computer on your network. This is a little inconvenient, but it sometimes helps. I used to do this, but it seems I don't need to anymore.

[Marin85]

You can try setting a manual IP address for each computer on your network. This is a little inconvenient, but it sometimes helps. I used to do this, but it seems I don't need to anymore.

...or, alternatively, one can set the static ip addresses in the very upper range of available ip addresses

[Stargate199]

A better option is to set the lease on DHCP address to something like 6 hours or something. Most routers set DHCP address leases to forever so it won't give up the IP address. I had problems with computers not reconnected after coming out of hibernate or sleep and when I changed the DHCP lease time to 6 hours, everything seemed to work better. I will occasionally have a problem connecting, but it does not happen often.

[Tõnis]

Thanks to all who responded. I have definitely noticed that the Thinkpad reconnects much better after resuming from standby (without having to repair the connection) when the other computer is not on line. Now, since I'm not so good at understanding the proposed solutions, I hope I can get a little more help.

A better option is to set the lease on DHCP address to something like 6 hours or something. Most routers set DHCP address leases to forever so it won't give up the IP address.

How do I do this?

In my Netgear router configuration, when I set up the WPA-PSK encryption passphrase, there is a Key Lifetime setting. It seemed to me that setting this to the maximum value accepted worked best for me. I believe the maximum value I could enter was something like maybe 10 hours (expressed in minutes).

How do I access my router configuration?

You can try setting a manual IP address for each computer on your network. This is a little inconvenient, but it sometimes helps. I used to do this, but it seems I don't need to anymore.

...or, alternatively, one can set the static ip addresses in the very upper range of available ip addresses

How do I do this? And are there any disadvantages to setting a static IP address on my notebook? [(I only connect to a wireless router at home. When out, I use an EVDO wireless USB modem, but I'm not sure if this even has anything to do with it.)]

Thanks again ...

[Stargate199]

if you open a command prompt in Windows and type "ipconfig /all" (without quotes of course) it will give you your IP address, Subnet mask, Gateway address and DNS addresses. Type your gateway address into your web browsers address bar (Your gateway address should be 192.168.1.1 or some variation but there is usually the 192.168.x.x). You may get a login prompt. The information is different between manufactures for that login prompt so consult your manual. Once you login, you come to a screen and that is your router configuration screen. Explore around but don't change anything until you find some of the thing we have been talking about like DHCP lease time, etc.

[GomJabbar]

I suggest you download the support document for your Netgear router from the following website: http://kbserver.netgear.com/downloads_support.asp

Here is the info for connecting to my Netgear router:

3. LOG IN TO THE WIRELESS FIREWALL/PRINT SERVER

a. From your PC, launch your Internet browser. Because you are not yet connected to the Internet, your browser will display a page not found message.

b. Connect to the wireless firewall/print server by typing http://192.168.0.1 in the address field of Internet Explorer or Netscape® Navigator.

c. Enter admin for the router user name and password for the router password, both in lower case letters.