Vista drivers for Atheros a/b/g/n. What is going on?

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FirstTimer · #1 Post by **FirstTimer** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 9:13 pm

I can’t get wireless to work stable in my office and at home with the same drivers.

Vista drivers from Lenovo web site (v 7.2.0.125) work more or less at home (I can get it to connect using 802.11n). Using these drivers I cannot connect to 802.11b network at the office no matter what. Among other things I tried without AC installed and using AC. It is using 802.1x authentication but I’m not sure if this is the problem. One of the workarounds is to use pc card adapter at the office.

Vista drivers from Windows update (v 7.2.0.190) work perfectly at the office and somewhat works at home (I can only connect to G network but not to N)

XP drivers from Lenovo site work the same way as Vista drivers from Windows Update.

All 3 versions of the driver have very unstable connection at home. I simply cannot copy files from my desktop larger than a few MB. Connection utilization fluctuates from 0 to 30% until it drops to 0 in about 10sec. At this point Vista offers to retry copying the file. This makes watching records from the media center impossible over wireless under Vista. It is working ok for browsing web though…

I disabled power management for the card. I reinstalled Vista from scratch to see if something else interfering… no luck.
I tried the same test with my other laptop (Intel Pro wireless G adapter with Vista drivers) and had no problem copying 4GB file over wireless at home.

Does anyone else have Atheros a/b/g/n card on Vista and able to copy large files over wireless?
If so which drivers are you using and which router do you have?

Thank you in advance!
P.S. My wireless router: Linksys WRT 350N

eclektiklp · #2 Post by **eclektiklp** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 1:39 pm

Hello, do you use Thinkavantage access connection to connect you wireless area network? Do you experiencing % fluctuations of signal quality (from your router) ?

cpascu01 · #3 Post by **cpascu01** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:30 pm

eclektiklp wrote:Hello, do you use Thinkavantage access connection to connect you wireless area network? Do you experiencing % fluctuations of signal quality (from your router) ?

I think I do. What does it mean?

#4 Post by **Kyocera** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:39 pm

Try getting rid of access connections and let Vista manage, i've had no issues connecting anywhere with vista and my atheros card compared to the intel card and XP/Vista. I'm using the 7.2.0.125 version. I have not been using many of the Lenovo drivers, for the simple reason until I have a problem I'm not going to try and fix something. Wireless for me (and I jump around to a lot of different networks during the day) has been a pleasure with Vista

Kind of relief as I had some issues early on with this machine and the intel card, even went to the point of having lenovo ship a new care (intel) which made no difference.

FirstTimer · #5 Post by **FirstTimer** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 9:28 pm

I uninstalled AC a while back. That made system more stable (I stopped getting BSOD with NIC card been the problem) v 7.2.0.125 driver does not allow me to cnnect at work at all. So I simply can not use this driver even if I did not have stability issue with it.

One thing I discovered yesterday is that I have 3 antenna connectors on my wireless card (under the keyboard) but only two antennas plugged into it. I’m not sure if this have anything to do with stabity of file transfer though…

Kyocera,
which wireless router are you using? Have you tried Linksys WRT 350N?

eclektiklp · #6 Post by **eclektiklp** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:00 am

Hello, I own a NIC adapter working on based atheros drivers for on XP OS. I use The client supplied by Atheros that works very well, even better than xp manager (it's deactivated). I also Use vista with intel 3945abg, I tested Lenovo Drivers and Intel Drivers, it's not possible to compare, lags and fluctuations with lenovo drivers, and perfect stable connection with intel's. Only Access Connection v4.31b makes the difference. If this can help you... good luck

PS: Did you try latest Atheros Drivers for Vista (v7.2.0.132) ?

#7 Post by **Kyocera** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:00 am

My main router at home (which belongs to my neighbor but he's totally cool with me using it since I keep it running for him) is a Belkin, can't think of the model name right now as i'm at work but I'll check later.

Have not tried that model of linksys, most of the ones out there right now are the WRT54G/WRT5AG.

FirstTimer · #8 Post by **FirstTimer** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:06 am

Can you copy large files from one computer to another?

I found that I can download files of the internet fairly well. Wireless utilization does not go over 4% in this case (looking at the task manager->Networking).

When I try copying files from another computer (from desktop connected with wire to the router) first I get up to 50% network utilization but then it drops to 0 within 10sec.

FirstTimer · #9 Post by **FirstTimer** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:42 am

Enabling ECN made it possible to copy large files over wireless. Network utilization drops from ~50% to ~40% after a few seconds but then remains stable.

Here is more about it
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/commun ... g1006.mspx

To enable run
netsh interface tcp set global ecncapability=enabled

rvacha · #10 Post by **rvacha** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:08 pm

FirstTimer wrote:To enable run
netsh interface tcp set global ecncapability=enabled

As an FYI this must be run from a command prompt run as an administrator to be successfully executed

FirstTimer · #11 Post by **FirstTimer** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:40 pm

Isn't this the case for any system settings change?

rvacha · #12 Post by **rvacha** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:11 pm

FirstTimer wrote:Isn't this the case for any system settings change?

Yes, but if you simply use the Run command and cut & paste the netsh command line, the command window opens and closes in a flash and no indication that the command failed can be seen (unless you have superhero talents). Just trying to save somebody some potential aggravation.

FirstTimer · #13 Post by **FirstTimer** » Sat May 05, 2007 9:47 pm

Just an update
Using latest Lenovo drivers:
At work
I can only connect to 802.11a network but not to b or g.

At home
After ECN is enabled I have stable connection. However if I connect to 802.11n then I can only get about 6Mbps actual transfer speed. Even though it reports 300Mbps connection speed the file transfer is very slow.
Using 802.11g works great. I get about 25Mbps file transfer speed.

As a summary:
Wireless card on my laptop is now usable but I can’t say that problem is completely solved.
The biggest problem at this point is that a work 802.11a is not available everywhere. So while I can use wireless in some places it is very frustrating to go to a meeting in another building to learn that my laptop cannot get wireless connection while everyone else can.

dandrop · #14 Post by **dandrop** » Sat May 05, 2007 9:57 pm

Ifelt thet the A/B/G/N stock driver from lenovo was not optimal. My laptop could only get 2 signal bars right beside the wireless router.

I went to the control panel and let "use windows update to find appropriate driver" option. Well, it found one dated 4/15/07. After the driver update, my signal went from 2 bars to full bars.

Maybe the windows driver update will fix your problem.

nhatnam4 · #15 Post by **nhatnam4** » Mon May 07, 2007 4:47 pm

Give this a try: http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

I called tech support and they told me to do the same thing. I got the Antheros a/b/g/n on my T60p, and if you need instructions for that let me know.

FirstTimer · #16 Post by **FirstTimer** » Sat May 12, 2007 4:39 pm

Yes I disabled all power management as suggested in that document. It is for Intel card but same applies for Atheros also.
Anyway, I did it a long time ago as without turning power management off wireless card drops connection whenever it pleases…
It’s a shame that drivers still not supporting power management properly.

In the past using windows provided driver did not do anything except for not connecting to 802.11n network at all.
Latest windows provided drivers (v7.2.0.215 date 4/27/2007) are actually working better!
Now I can connect to all networks at the office and I can connect to 802.11g network at home. All connections are stable enough to copy 8GB HD recordings. Connection over 802.11g is slower then with Lenovo provided drivers though. I get only about 18Mbps with windows drivers and around 25Mbps with Lenovo drivers.
With windows drivers I still cannot connect to 802.11n network at home. This is not a big issue compare to not been able to connect at all at the office so I keep windows drivers for now…

I wonder sometimes if I should’ve ordered Intel card instead of Atheros back when I ordered my laptop  So far I did not get any speed improvement ever out of abgn card in my laptop. I did get all this hmm driver installation experience though…

yobyot · #17 Post by **yobyot** » Mon May 14, 2007 8:13 pm

nhatnam4 wrote:Give this a try: http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

I called tech support and they told me to do the same thing. I got the Antheros a/b/g/n on my T60p, and if you need instructions for that let me know.

Yup, this is the key. I have Atheros a/b/g/n on my T60p and no combination of Vista-installed or Lenovo-supplied drivers were stable with my Linksys WRTG54 router. (Naturally...this is only one of the most common g routers on the market. Why would Atheros test with it?)

Finally, I set the "wireless adapter" settings to "maximum performance" on all power plans. Bingo! Rock-solid connections.

I also called IBM support, who told me that it was impossible that this was a problem, it was my machine and if they tested it, they'd discover that it was my machine.

Usually, I am pretty pleased with IBM support. But this time, they really had their head stuck up you-know-where.

#18 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Tue May 15, 2007 6:51 am

Sparklan have an Atheros draft-N card. Try those drivers:
http://sparklan.com/product_details.php?prod_id=148

FirstTimer · #19 Post by **FirstTimer** » Tue May 15, 2007 10:06 pm

yobyot,
Have you tried copying large (1GB+) files over wireless without enabling ECN?

FirstTimer · #20 Post by **FirstTimer** » Tue May 15, 2007 10:08 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:Sparklan have an Atheros draft-N card. Try those drivers:
http://sparklan.com/product_details.php?prod_id=148

Have anyone tried this driver on Vista?

Vista drivers for Atheros a/b/g/n. What is going on?

Vista drivers for Atheros a/b/g/n. What is going on?

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