ATLien_0 Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 I have an odd situation that happens with my DLink DIR 615 wireless N router. The router itself is about 2 years old now as well. Anyways, my internet connection will time to time drop out especially under heavy loads, but only in wireless not wired. I have to turn the wireless off and then on in OSX then its fine I initially thought it would be a poor signal, but I have about a 60% signal right now. The router is on the floor below me pointing upwards. I also checked for interference with iStumbler. Every router channel shows about 10-12% noise. Any ideas what could be causing this, It may happen 5-10 times within an hour Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detection Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 If turning wifi off and on in OSX fixes it, why do you think its the router with the problem ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra.Xtreme Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 It isn't uncommon for wireless to drop out under heavy loads. I had the same happen occasionally with Linksys and Asus routers. If you can put either DD-WRT or Tomato on it, it might help a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabz0r Veteran Posted July 25, 2012 Veteran Share Posted July 25, 2012 Try to see if there is an update verion of your Firmware. That usually fixed the problem some of my customer had in the some time ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted July 25, 2012 MVC Share Posted July 25, 2012 Im with detection - how does having to reset the client card point to the router? Do you have other wireless clients, do they all do the same thing? Or just this one client? Do you not see the issue with this client on other wireless networks? What security are these other networks using? Does the client actually say the connection was lost? What does it show for your ip on the client? Could it be related to a dhcp lease renew? What is the duration of your dhcp lease? From the information given I having a hard time pointing to router vs client. But sure if you have not updated the firmware of your router, or even the driver of your client - it couldn't hurt to update those. But unless you have recently updated one or the other, why would it have worked for so long before - so driver/firmware is unlikely unless one side has recently been changed. Has this issue always been there? Or has it recently shown up? nabz0r 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abysal Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 I have 2 older D-link routers a DGL-4300 802.11g and a DIR-655 802.11n. Both have traffic shaping capabilities called "game fuel". When I disabled that my issues with the DGL-4300 dropping wireless were resolved. On the DIR-655 I also disabled the wireless QoS service called "WISH". I'm guessing they were over taxing the processor . Edit: General web browsing worked fine, but downloading Steam games @ > 3 Mbits would cause my wireless to drop and or the WAN to drop packets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATLien_0 Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 Should have mentioned earlier that we have a 2nd laptop running Windows and the same thing happens on there. If it were a Mac thing though what would be causing it? I have updated the firmare, but the latest is still over a year old. What other tests should I try. The only thing I have been able to tell is that when it drops nothing will connect in chrome, even connecting to the routers maintenance ip doesn't work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfadon Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 I would try putting dd-wrt on it. The original d-link firmware isn't all that great. I have two of these routers ( ones a wireless bridge) both with dd-wrt and have never had any signal drops. But if you dont want to try that, try setting the wireless channel to something else. I had that problem on another router that would drop the signal every so ofter because something else was using the channel it was on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybertimber2008 Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 If you reset the Mac, does your laptop suddenly start working? I wonder if something is getting borked (noise?) and kicking both off. Additionally... when you say you can't connect to the "maintenance ip", is that via wire or wireless? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATLien_0 Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 trying to connect to the router ip address fails on wireless when its down but not on wired. Signal doesn't seem to be an issue either, and like I said I am only at 12% interference right now. I checked on iStumbler and right now I am on Channel 4 and its showing about 6 other wireless routers near me all on channel ranges 6-11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybertimber2008 Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 Well let's start there. You should be on channel 1, 6, or 11 (called "non-overlapping channels). Seeing that you are in Atlanta I won't mention Channel 14. Second, no shocker that you cannot connect to the router wirelessly when you lose connection. :) But when you lose connection on your Mac AND laptop, does resetting the Mac fix the laptop's connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATLien_0 Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 When I loose connection on my macbook pro or windows 7 laptop I just turn off and on the wireless on each OS and its fine again. When it drops out it drops on both and I have to reconnect each one. Reconnecting the mac doesn't fix the windows one and visa versa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted July 25, 2012 MVC Share Posted July 25, 2012 That seems very odd.. But to be honest trying to connect to the web UI from wireless is normally not a good test, because by default for security reasons you normally don't allow access to the web ui via wireless clients. Most routers normally allow you to only allow UI access via wired connection - so when its working you can access the UI via wireless? So again your saying wireless shows connected? But you can not go anywhere, you can not ping the routers IP? Do you show packets being received and transmitted - not sure how you do it on mac, but on windows calling up the properties of your wireless nic should show you this info. I would use your windows client for troubleshooting and forget the mac for now - just because more people here will be able to tell you how to do things with windows vs mac. While its working please post screenshot of ipconfig /all on windows - then when it fails, take a look at ipconfig /all again - I am curious if your not just loosing your lease. If your lease time is short, and its not renewing - and your resetting or turning on both devices at the same they could both be loosing lease around the same time so problem looks like happening on both of them. If something happened with the wireless on the router - you normally would have to reset the router to clear the problem, vs just resetting the connection on the client. But if you lost your dhcp lease you could still be connected to the wireless network, but you would not be able to go anywhere. We can check that via ipconfig /all output - another thing to check. When it is working verify what the mac of your router is, take a look at arp -a when working via cmd line. Then when fails check it again, do you loose the mac for your router IP? Trying pinging it, do you get the mac or what does it show? As to the channel thing - yeah 4 is kind of a pointless channel to be on - wireless channels overlap So as you can 4 is going to see interference from 5678, and 123, -- while if you were on say 1 you would only see interference from 2,3,4 and 5 -- as you can see the 3 channels available in the US that do not overlap is 1 6 and 11. Using channels between those normally not going to be helpful. But sure depending what the other wireless networks around you are running it might rarely make sense to use a one off channel. Depends on how many idiots you have around you ;) Also what security are you using? Are you broadcasting your UNIQUE SSID, you sure your clients are just not trying to hop to a different AP - say the guy across the street.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATLien_0 Posted August 16, 2012 Author Share Posted August 16, 2012 Going to revisit this, I started noticing the problem happening again even after changing to a non interfere channel. Basically the problem seems to occur after I sleep my Mac a few times. If I shut down my mac and restart it as well as the router things go back to normal. Not really sure what could be causing the disconnect between the mac and the router. The wireless still shows as connected, but I am unable to ping my router or connect to the net when it drops out. Could it be an ip conflict? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astropheed Veteran Posted August 16, 2012 Veteran Share Posted August 16, 2012 I had the exact same router, with the exact same problem. The quickest fix with the least amount of headaches was getting a new router. Sorry, not very helpful, but it's what I did. I gave up trying after a month of expletives! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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