Intel 2200BG wireless problems from hibernate/standby

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smc · #1 Post by **smc** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:53 pm

Has anyone noticed the following problem with the Intel 2200BG 802.11b/g adapter in their Thinkpad?

If the Thinkpad is placed into standby or hibernate mode, the 2200BG adapter becomes unstable when the machine is turned back on. Here are the problems I've noticed:

1. The wireless adapter drops the connection to the router under a heavy data load such as copying files to another client. It then takes about 45-60 seconds for the adapter to be able to see the router again.
2. Downloaded data will get corrupted on occasion, causing Web pages to render incorrectly or huge downloads rendered useless because some bits were wrong.

If the laptop was powered off or if after coming out of hibernate/standby, you disable the wireless adapter in the Windows Network Connections dialog and re-enable it, everything works fine.

This occurred with two different routers and another computer accessing the current router does not have this problem so I don't think it's the router (DI-624).

I'm running the latest drivers of Access Connections and the wireless adapter. Anyone experience a similar problem? I'll call up IBM to see if they can fix it.

puco · #2 Post by **puco** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:52 am

Do you use encryption, and it yes, what protocol? Those things you describe happn only after it is brought back from hibernate/standby?

gruen · #3 Post by **gruen** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:58 am

I have had similar issues:

Files consistantly come in corrupted, regardless of wifi router.

I've had IBM send me a replacement card, same problems.

I'm going to call them sometime soon about this-- i need (and paid for) reliable wifi networking! It's especially annoying when tunnelling X windows over cygwin, and it keeps dropping my connection due to a bad connection (grumble)

puco · #4 Post by **puco** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 1:16 am

I had no such problems between my SMC router and 2200BG, and was using unencrypted and WPA. Only problems were with a dropping conncetion which was traced to a setting on the router (ReKeying in WPA after 1 hour).

gruen: do you have 2200BG, do you use encryption, were you router b or g or both? Does this happen at all connection speeds?

smc · #5 Post by **smc** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 7:05 am

Yes, I use WPA with PSK/TKIP. I'll try setting the router and card to WEP and no encryption but I don't want to run in any mode other than WPA,

These problems only happen when the Thinkpad comes out of hibernate or standby, booting from power off state has no problems. Interestingly enough, disabling and reenabling the adapter after a hibernate/standby also fixes the problem.

Since this problem also happens under hibernate and from a hardware standpoint a hibernate is basically the same as powering off, could this be a driver or OS problem?

puco · #6 Post by **puco** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:27 am

I guess it must be a driver problem not handling power events properly, just make sure you have the most recent driver and if this does not cure the problem, that I guess you have to wait or write some kind of script restartnig the device.

I also have 2200BG and use WPA, so I check if I have the problem also.

gruen · #7 Post by **gruen** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:17 pm

hey-

i've tried a g router, and my school's b airhubs. all of them constantly drop packets. since windows tries to put them together anyway, methinks there's an error on the data layer, which means its either the card or driver's fault.

i've updated to the latest drivers (twice) but no success. Sometimes it works better than other times, but i don't think that powering down has anything to do with it.

And yes, 2200bg. I'm trying to get WEP or WPA set up on the router I just got in the mail; i'm setting it up tuesday and will report.

sugo · #8 Post by **sugo** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 7:23 pm

I am running 2200b/g WPA-PSK with xp sp2 WZC. Access point is airport express. I put the thinkpad to standby and wake it up all the time with AC power. I don't seem to experience the issue.

Perhaps it's IBM Access Connection?

rmaurer · #9 Post by **rmaurer** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:43 pm

I've also got the corruption problem with the 2200b/g. Web browsing is tolerable with only occasional bad renders. Downloads are almost always corrupted though. This doesn't occur at all if I use one of the ethernet ports on the same router.

Let me know what solutions/new observations develop. This is very frustrating. I'm tempted to ask IBM to exchange the 2200b/g for an Atheros based a/b/g card.

-Ralph

gruen · #10 Post by **gruen** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:58 pm

i'm going to call monday- these corrupted packets are unacceptable

deanchi · #11 Post by **deanchi** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:13 am

Yes, I had the same problem coming back from Standby or Hibernation. (I use 64-bit WEP).

My machine is a 23736VU, 1.7, 40gig, 512mb, 2200 b/g, 14.1".

I went to the ThinkPad web support page and down loaded their latest 2200 b/g driver file (IVWC23WW.exe). After installing the new drivers I have not encountered any of the previous problems of losing connections every minute or so.

Be sure to download the version 3.30 of the IBM Access Connection utility too, otherwise the new drivers will not run correctly.

smc · #12 Post by **smc** » Wed Oct 06, 2004 7:08 am

I downloaded the latest 2200BG driver from Intel's website where the driver revision is 8.1.0.28 instead of 8.1.0.25 (http://support.intel.com/support/wirele ... 010623.htm). So far so good and the connection works with WPA.

Access Connections 3.3 was starting to get flaky so I uninstalled it and am using the Intel PROset utility -- it's not as flexible as AC but has a lot more diagnostic information.

Intel 2200BG wireless problems from hibernate/standby

Intel 2200BG wireless problems from hibernate/standby

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