[PLUG] Can a faulty wifi driver affect router's behavior?

[Anukalp]

Hi! I have the same problem. Also if i connect using my mobile and
network manager i have to restart the mobile. Wvdial works fine with
mobile though.

On 12/7/11, Mayuresh <mayuresh at acm.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 11:38:41AM +0530, Arun Khan wrote:
>> > 1. The desktop/laptop dropping the connection (with no apparent trigger,
>> > except perhaps multiple sessions demanding data over network
>> > simultaneously), in which case you must manually do ifdown and ifup
>> > again.
>> > It won't re-connect automatically.
>>
>> You have not mentioned brand/model of your WiFi AP; whether you have
>> flashed a 3rd party FW etc.
>
> WRT54GL Firmware: DD-WRT v23 SP2 (09/15/06) std
>
>> Also, are you using NetManager to manage the "network" connection on
>> your desktop?
>
> No. I dislike such additional layers. (I mean I don't use KDE, Gnome
> either for example. Am more of a bare bones user.)
>
>> I have a 6 yr old Linksys WRT54G series router which started behaving
>> similar to yours.  Power cycle would establish the network
>> connectivity but it would degenerate to nil over a period of time.
>> Signal strength on the applet display  > 80%.
>>
>> Replaced the unit and the problem has gone away.
>
> I face the problem only on Fedora. Not on NetBSD and maemo. So don't think
> it's a fault of the router. But you never know.
>
>> > 2. Desktop/laptop showing connection active with good signal quality,
>> > but
>> > router simply not responding to anything - even ping to it. In this case
>> > there was no option but to power restart the router and after it comes
>> > up
>> > again restart the interface.
>> >
>> >
>> > This was painful, though I had come to terms with it.
>> >
>> > Then NetBSD appeared out of blue on my laptop/desktop one fine day.
>>
>> Wow, this is a candidate for the Guinness book :D
>
> Well I just meant, I was exploring BSDs and did not specifically install
> for this purpose. So looking at it from this problems perspective, it was
> a pleasant surprise that landed up on my system out of nowhere!
>
> An aside: My family members who are not with technical background, but
> have been Linux users, now insist that they want to use NetBSD. They know
> or care nothing about what the pluses and minuses are. All that they know
> is they don't have to now reboot the router in the middle of web surfing,
> wait patiently and then restart network interfaces (or just restart
> network interfaces depending on which of the two faults triggered)!
>
>
>> > The wifi driver on NetBSD for my hardware is so stable, it never dropped
>> > the connection over last few months of usage. Even if the router is
>> > switched off and on, the interface remains active and re-establishes
>> > connection automatically.
>>
>> Good.  The real issue may be with the higher layer application
>> (NetworkManager) that is managing the network interfaces.     Looks
>> like NetBSD has a more stable Network Manager or whatever it is that
>> manages it's network connections.
>
> It still appears a driver layer thing to me. I do not use NM on Fedora. Do
> not have such notion on NetBSD.
>
>> > So far still nothing unusual. One implementation of driver can be better
>> > than the other.
>>
>> Yes,
>>
>> >
>> > What surprises me is the issue no. 2 above, where I had to occasionally
>> > restart the router as it used to get hung has disappeared as well.
>>
>> NetworkManager - suggest a bug report stating your scenario as a test
>> case.
>
> No I don't use NM.
>
>> Thanks for sharing your experience, it does raise awareness re: WiFi
>> security.
>
> ?? :-)
> Mayuresh
>
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-- 
Sent from my mobile device

Anukalp