I recently had issues with the reliability of Broadcom cards and Vigor 2820 wireless adsl routers. Specifically the Broadcom cards were embedded ones in two different HP laptops – a 6715S and a Touchsmart Tx2. Given the difference in the cards I was fairly convinced that the answer lay with the router – but the situation was compounded by the fact that both had bee migrated to Windows 7 from Vista (although different versions).
The main symptoms of the problem would be the very intermittent nature of the connection and the lack of any specific remedy. The driver versions were checked and the router firmware was a relatively recent version. Both the laptops could connect and sustain a wireless nto other older vigor routers at other locations and appeared to have no issues connecting to other access points. Using an external usb netgear wireless card provided flawless connectivity but at the expense of have a dangling network card waiting to get damaged.
On speaking to Seg – Drayteks UK distributor – my contact suggested that we look at the channel settings and the bands that were being used.
At that stage I noted that the drivers for both HPs were substantially different and that they had very few settings in common (at least not that they seemed common). The first point of call was the router settings and switching to Wireless mode 11G only and making sure long preamble was off and that Tx Burst was disabled. In the advanced settings section the operation mode was set to mixed mode and the channel bandwidth to 20/40. The guard interval was auto and the Agreggation MSDU was enabled.
Then on the wireless card side - a Broadcom.11a/b/g - I looked at the range of settings and specifically whether any of them related to channel negotiation or a bias towards older wireless settings such as 11b. Afterburner was disabled and AP compatibility set for Broader Compatibility.Finally the opt for band preference was set to 11g/b and disable bands set to disable 802.11a – the last options being WZC IBSS Channel number – which I set to 40 and Xpress Technology disabled.
The result was a rock solid connection which has behaved flawless. I applied similar changes to the TX2 card and was able get the same result – a working connection with great speed. So it goes to show – compatibility sometimes needs compromise on both sides
Welcome to the New Year and a new release of WordPress »« You are my everything ….
I recover and transfer a lot of data from various machines that I work on for myself and clients. Sometimes I know what I’m looking for but not where it is – especially when recovering data from failing or failed drives. So when I want to know (and don’t want to wait for the abysmally slow Vista search) I use Everything – a search utility from Voidtools
They list the applications main features as
Small installation file Clean and simple user interface Quick file indexing Quick searching Minimal resource usage Share files with others easily Real-time updating
But for me its the sheer speed of finding what I want across terabytes of storage..
For details about all the things the app can do http://www.voidtools.com/faq.php
Now you see it – Now you don’t (Broadcom cards and Vigor 2820 wireless) »« Happy to Meet – Sorry to part
Some non IT related nostalgia this morning. Last night I went to what will be the second last concert by Irish Rockers Horslips after a gap of 29 years since their final Belfast Gigs performances. I have to say I never thought I would see the day again where I would hear these masters of Celtic Rock playing at their peak – live in concert. Several times I’ve used the words from their songs as titles for posts here – I hope they can forgive that.
The Odyssey arena in Belfast filled up relatively slowly – probably because most of the people would have been in their 40′s and 50′s and had waited this long to see the band. That said – the number of younger family members who would not have been born when the band last played was quite impressive.
Horslips were not just a rock band – they actually designed and produced their own artwork – covers – posters and merchandise at a time when this was unheard of. They took control of the music they were going to create. This gave them the freedom to express what was truly unique about them – the marriage between traditional irish music and the use of traditional and modern instruments and arrangements. The breadth of musical sources and the incredibly tight co-ordination of the music created a genre – which many imitated but none surpassed.
The concert surprised me in as much as the range of music played – from early albums through to the last studio album they made and the song choices that they made – including some songs that probably have not been heard live many times before – showed a mastery of all their songs from all of the albums.
The finale had the entire audience on their feet for probably their most iconic theme – “Dearg Doom” (Red Destroyer) (This comes from their concept album The Tain (Tain Bo Cuailgne)- which tells stories of an episode in Irish History which translates as “The cattle raid on Cooley”.)
The audience were as one for this amazing song and I have to say that it was hypnotic watching the display of togetherness and enjoyment that was in the air and when the band left the stage there was only one possibility of what was going to happen next. As one voice the old familiar chant of “Horslips” combined with rythmic handclapping – brought them back for three standing ovations before the crowd would let them leave the stage after a night of sheer musical magic.
BTW the title for todays post comes from a Horslips Album “Happy to meet – Sorry to Part” and feels apt in its sentiment since next Saturday nights gig in Dublin is the second and last of the “Tour”. So I just want to say thank you to the Band for a night of memories and magic and leave you with a tag line on one of their posters from the 70′s
“HORSLIPS WILL BLOW YOUR LUGS OFF” (for those of you not from the island of Ireland – Your Lugs are your ears)
You are my everything …. »« Vigor 2820 firmware update for AP700 compatibility
