Personal 2km Wifi point-to-point problems - Help would be greatly appreciated!

evil.jelly · 17 Apr 2006 at 22:40

I live in a remote area where BT have refused to provide me broadband, so I have setup a 2km point-to-point wifi system to provide me with my own broadband connection.

It breaks down like this:

My Friends House's Attic (2km across a valley from me).

2mb broadband line - Netgear Broadband Router (192.168.0.1) (set as Access Point Client) - WAP (192.168.0.100) - Backfire Antennae

---- 2km valley ----

My House

Backfire Antennae - WAP (192.168.0.101) (set as Access Point) - my PC (DHCP assigned)

So when the system works i can play battlefield2 with a ping of 20 on some servers and can clock solid download speeds up to 230k.

But there's a catch.

The problem is almost every single night and sometimes in the days I have to get my mate to reset the WAP in his house as I have lost connectivity on my end.

So to keep the questions simple at this stage, does anyone have any idea why is happening?

I have been working on this project for 5 months now and have lots of information to share concerning this but don't want to overload in the first post.

Please if anyone thinks they can help me or has experience with this just hit me with questions and I will be more than happy to answer. Thanks for any help!

Edit: I have tried different WAPs on his end and my end and it happens with them also.

AMDX23800+ · 17 Apr 2006 at 22:47

My mate's comp does that and think it's because of his wireless adapter on his PC.
It's usually when he restarts or in the morning basically he can connect to the network with ver good signal but can't access the internet at all although all lights including ADSL are on on the modem. He has to turn off the modem/router and turn it back on again for it to work lol.
Sorry i really don't have a clue how to stop it

evil.jelly · 17 Apr 2006 at 22:50

One weird thing is that it only ever happens on his end. I can always connect to my wap, it hasn't once needed to be reset.

So once he has reset his end it's all working again, but if i reset my end while his hasn't been reset it doesn't work.

oddjob62 · 18 Apr 2006 at 01:08

Tried changing it so his WAP is the AP and yours is the client?

Tried it in Bridge mode?

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 09:18

oddjob62 said:
Tried changing it so his WAP is the AP and yours is the client?

Tried it in Bridge mode?

Yes I have tried swapping waps and i've actually replaced the whole system with identical models of the waps.

I have also tried it in bridge mode yes. Thanks for your suggestions.

Is having to reboot a wap on a regular basis unusual?

The waps are: Pheenet WAP-011A Access Points

dantonkin · 18 Apr 2006 at 09:53

If you ever find a solution to this problem i'll throw you a bone... I have the same problem a few times every week. Only solution I've found is to switch off both router and modem. Switch on Modem, then Router. Does my bleeding head in.

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 10:03

dantonkin said:
If you ever find a solution to this problem i'll throw you a bone... I have the same problem a few times every week. Only solution I've found is to switch off both router and modem. Switch on Modem, then Router. Does my bleeding head in.

Ugh, that's bad news mate. I was really hoping to find a more reliable solution too.

What wireless router are you using?

dantonkin · 18 Apr 2006 at 10:12

It's a "Netgear WGT624 Cable/DSL 802.11g 108Mbps" + Netgear Wireless PCI Card.

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 10:51

dantonkin said:
It's a "Netgear WGT624 Cable/DSL 802.11g 108Mbps" + Netgear Wireless PCI Card.

I guess the other way of doing this is to work out how to reset a router by ringing a phone.

dantonkin · 18 Apr 2006 at 10:54

would be no use at all on my part. I'm on an NTL connection via modem. No landline to ring. (if thats what you meant).

Could be the Netgear hardware. I was tempted to scrap it as they don't support x64 OS's.

hybrid · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:08

I like the sound of this project.

Just to clarify...

are both sides using the most up-to-date firmware?
When the connection breaks down, can you ping your WAP?

Any ideas on what the signal strenght is from both sides?

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:35

hybrid said:
I like the sound of this project.

Just to clarify...

are both sides using the most up-to-date firmware?
When the connection breaks down, can you ping your WAP?

Any ideas on what the signal strenght is from both sides?

There have been no firmware updates as I wasn't aware there were any available for my models. I will google now.

When the wap on my mate's end goes down then it is unreachable, but my wap is still pingable.

just_grass · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:50

how about a fix? - costing a few quid?

a mains digital timer - set to turn off then on again his ap at a set time every day?

just a thought. - would be better to fix what you have though obviously.

Alex

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 12:11

just_grass said:
how about a fix? - costing a few quid?

a mains digital timer - set to turn off then on again his ap at a set time every day?

just a thought. - would be better to fix what you have though obviously.

Alex

Very interesting for a short-term easy fix at least. May massively help to reduce the number of reboots. Thanks

Skilldibop · 18 Apr 2006 at 12:13

it's almost certainly a compatabilty issue. If it's happened with 2 different models of AP then it's almost vertainly something he or his adapter is doing that's crashing the AP. Probably Bittorrent or some such thing. If he overloads his AP with TCP connections then once the CPU pops the link goes.

just_grass · 18 Apr 2006 at 12:20

Skilldibop said:
it's almost certainly a compatabilty issue. If it's happened with 2 different models of AP then it's almost vertainly something he or his adapter is doing that's crashing the AP. Probably Bittorrent or some such thing. If he overloads his AP with TCP connections then once the CPU pops the link goes.

actually yes very good thinking!

what does he have plugged in at his end? - pcs/ wireless laptops/ xboxes? anything? and in what order?

it must be his AP thats going down as you cannot ping it from your end, BUT is his ap acting as a router/switch for any of his devices? (ie does he put any traffic through the ap himself? or is he direct on the modem?)

Alex

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:24

This rig is *completely* separate from my mates system.

Basically it's in his attic where i have installed a phone line (into the attic) and have run an extension cable up into the attic to power the equipment which is sitting on an attic board.

He does the reset by flicking the power switch in his bedroom.

So just to reiterate the system in his attic is isolated and is purely used for sending a 2mb broadband signal down to me.

It is definitely the AP client in his attic going down.. could it be 'crashing' or is it just losing synch or something?

Thanks for all your help, it's really appreciated.

just_grass · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:27

evil.jelly said:
This rig is *completely* separate from my mates system.

Basically it's in his attic where i have installed a phone line (into the attic) and have run an extension cable up into the attic to power the equipment which is sitting on an attic board.

He does the reset by flicking the power switch in his bedroom.

So just to reiterate the system in his attic is isolated and is purely used for sending a 2mb broadband signal down to me.

It is definitely the AP client in his attic going down.. could it be 'crashing' or is it just losing synch or something?

Thanks for all your help, it's really appreciated.

can he ping the ap at his end if he was to plug in a machine? - that would possibly show whether it is crashing or losing sync.

there wouldn't be a rather large vehicle passing between the antennas atthe same time every day or something stupid that knocks the signal out is there?

Alex

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:43

just_grass said:
can he ping the ap at his end if he was to plug in a machine? - that would possibly show whether it is crashing or losing sync.

there wouldn't be a rather large vehicle passing between the antennas atthe same time every day or something stupid that knocks the signal out is there?

Alex

Interesting idea.. we did lose connectivity once because an ambulance had pulled up to take his next door neighbour off to have her baby. But once it had left the signal resumed.

Is it really possible that something like that could knock the signal out of synch?

just_grass · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:46

yup.

i have set up a wireless peer-bridge network with 3 base stations across a car breakers yard.

one of the stations had to be put next to one of the engine bays. - this sometimes got full - either with large hunks of metal engines or with large cars sat parked in the way and would knock that building off the network.

re-situating the station on the roof sorted it (higher than the vehicles and other metals)

obviously in your case it may not be the shear thickness of anything that prevents the signal, it could be the distance coupled with a very thin object in the way.

Alex