Shaky Simpad networking on battery power

[Dave T]

Simmy is acting strangely. When it's plugged in, it seems to connect to the network well. On battery power, it's hit or miss. It will lose its network connectivity, and sometimes a hard reboot will let it reconnect for a while, sometimes not. Also, I found that I needed to give it a hard coded IP address. With DHCP, it wouldn't always get an IP address.

When I say that it can't connect, I mean that I can't even ping my access point. When it's on battery, it claims to have plenty of power, right now it's got 80%, and still can't connect.

I'm on the Siemens Igate card that Jeroen supplied.

Anyone else seeing this?

- Dave

[Mastiff]

Not at all. It's rock solid on my system. I haven't yet lost the connection...once I found it! It took some time, I had to borrow (well, buy with a 30 day money back system which I'm going to use as soon as I get my new 11g AP) another AP because the Trend did not want to play ball. Are you on an AP or on ad-hoc?

I've got static IP, with no extra fun stuff. I don't use encryption, I haven't tried that. Can that be the problem for you?

[Ben S]

Weird. Mine is rock solid, as well. It reconnects in less than 5 seconds, too, after power off and power on, which is real nice.

[Dave T]

Well, what the heck! I can't get mine to reliably work at all. I'm going to see if there are newer drivers to download. I also might try another card.

Another random thought - how many AP's do you guys have going? More than one? I have three. Maybe it's losing connectivity because it's trying to "roam"?

- Dave

[Ben S]

I only have one. Good thought!

[Dave T]

Ok, I'd like to see what the Simpad is "seeing". I'm looking for a "wireless status" screen, where I can see what access point it's connected to, signal strength, etc. I don't see any such application. I don't even see a way to change the WAP settings? Where do you do to configure/view status of the wireless card?

- Dave

[Mastiff]

Programs, communication, I-gate configuratio on my system. It's in my startup and ends up in the tray (a desktop pc with an antenna).

[Dave T]

Hmmm. Curiouser and curiouser. I don't have that. How did you install your IGate drivers? Jeoren did mine for me. Maybe I need to reinstall...

[Dave T]

Never mind - it is there. I didn't have the unit in front of me when I said that. Never believe anything I say. Don't know why I didn't see that before. Thanks.

[Dave T]

Ok, I finally gave up on the IGate. Once I found the signal strength meter (thanks, Mastiff!), I could see that it would repeatedly lose the access point(s), even when I was standing within 10 feet. I don't know what's up with that. So, ..., I took an old Compaq WL100 PC card I had, and installed that. Getting the driver and getting it installed properly was an adventure in itself. But, now it works!

And, I'm having a new issue with the Simpad. I'll start another thread.

Thanks for your help, everyone!

[Mastiff]

Very weird about the I-Gate. I can connect about 30 meters outside of my house and in every room in it (and it's a large house).

[Dave T]

Mastiff:

I'm thinking that it could be due to my having 3 access points in my house. Do you have more than one?

Or, perhaps its my brand of access point? I'm using the Linksys WAP11. It's worked fine with other cards I've thrown at it (Orinoco, Compaq, Linksys, and Cisco), as well as whatever's in my Toshiba E740, but who knows...

- Dave

[Mastiff]

I have 2 at times, on different SSIDs. Another thing: Could you sell me your I-Gate? I need an old card for a Pentium notebook I want to use for the Win32 version of NetRemote.

[grog]

Tor - were you able to find Windows drivers for the I-Gate? I looked around everywhere but couldn't find them.

[grog]

Or, perhaps its my brand of access point? I'm using the Linksys WAP11.
Dave - I'm using a Linksys access point too (mine's a WRT54G) and the I-Gate works fine with it so it's probably not an incompatibility issue.

[Mastiff]

Yes. http://www.my-siemens.com/MySiemens/CDA/Index/0,1046,DK_da_0_product%253AHO%252FNW%252FNWG%252FI GATE11MPCCARD%252Fdanda%252F,00.html The page is in danish and english.

[Dave T]

Tor:

So, with different SSID's, that means that you're only trying to connect to one at a time, right? That might be a difference.

Regarding selling you my IGate - sure. I guess I'm going to give up on it. Send me your address and I'll send it to you. If it works, you can send me a check. I'm at dpt@eliassen.com.

- Dave

[grog]

Thanks Tor, works like a charm!