WLAN / WIFI Card Issues

[estnyc]

I'm just about at my wit's end. I tried disabling the webcam, to no avail. I have an SMC USB WiFi stick, and wasted far too much time tonight trying to install its drivers and getting it to work. As it also has an Atheros chip, it seemed to somehow trip over the builtin Atheros card. It can't help but think this would've worked better on a Mac, but I don't want to start a Mac/PC flame war. If I can get this machine to boot up quickly in OS X, I'm going to bite the bullet.

Anyway, I'm tired of the unpredictable flakiness of the WiFi on this thing. I never know which click is going to be the one that makes the card go poof. (I know, the clicks don't make it happen, but it feels like that sometimes.) It's almost as bad that the connection can abruptly hang for a minute or more, and then start up again for not good reason. I've given up on using Thunderbird as an email client -- it's too unhappy with the drop outs and drop ins. Sigh.

I'm going to try the new BIOS and see if it makes a difference. I'm assuming there's a BIOS for Dummies page here somewhere...

I'd like to put in a WiFi card which would be the most compatible with OS X, and not too much of a pain to install. Any recommendations?

I've already wasted too much time trying to coax this flaky card into behaving. Time to replace it.

Maybe I should just go back to my trusty eMate. It's bog slow, but still gets six to eight hours on a charge.

 

[mercado79]

stop making it harder than it needs to be and try out the bios that was released with wifi fixes! i understand that you're trying to troubleshoot the issue and "make it work", but... take a break from that for now!

check out macles' website. there's tons of great info there including download locations for the new bios v 3440 as well as instructions for creating a bootable usb using freedos and unetbootin. very straight forward...promise.

http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/08/acer ... v3304.html

good luck!!

 

[lolknight]

Tried the new BIOS, problem still persists.

Has anyone contacted Acer about this? Does it happen on all units? If not, I might RMA mine or send it in for repair...

 

[Nightwhisper]

haven't solved the problem for me... after 30 sec or 3 min my wifi card shut down :cry:

 

[estnyc]

Well, I followed mercado's advice and upgraded the bios. Since then, I have not had the card do its familiar disappearing act. However, it still drops the connection every once in awhile, and then reconnects, almost as if it's teasing me. Sometimes browsing's zippy, sometimes horrendously slow.

I haven't had to do the "repair" thing, though, as it seems to reconnect by itself pretty well.

So, for me, from my few hours since upgrading, I haven't had the card disappear requiring shutdown, wait, restart. So that's very good. Perhaps tomorrow it'll be back to its tricks, but even though it's not perfect, the occasional hiccup with dropped and regained connections is far preferable to having to drop everything, reboot, and say a prayer.

Thanks for the kick in the right direction, mercado!

E

 

[Nightwhisper]

one great italian guy installed http://www.matteomoro.net/2008/08/0...untu-configurazione-corretta-della-rete-wifi/ ubuntu 8.04 have disabled the ACPI to make the wi-fi works.

edit  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add:

blacklist acer_acpi
blacklist pata_acpi

I'll try it when I'll go home *cross fingers*

edit: haven't worked! :-(

 

[gelatinous]

Just a note on the "wireless zero configuration" in XP and setting all recovery services to "restart service".

This definitely seems to have improved mine. Where before each evening I would have the wireless drop out at least 3-4 times a night requiring a reboot, now it has only done it once in two days. Vast improvement over what it was doing before. I don't think I'm going to attempt a BIOS update with the wireless working this well.

 

[lgmayka]

Previously, I resolved essentially all WiFi problems by reverting to the 3109 BIOS and setting the driver's Power Save to Off.

So the question is, Do we have good reason to believe that 3304 is at least as good as 3109 in this regard?

 

[uk_dude]

Ah yes the wireless card dropping your connection, bottom Line. . . I replace the card, got ride of the Atheros and replace it with an Intel 3945ABG, worked great for me, no bios update fixes, just a different card

Save the time looking go to viewtopic.php?f=40&t=1443 for how to disassemble and replace the card

Have Fun UK_DUDE

 

[ebaker]

I was getting frequent issues with the wifi card disappearing with bios 3114. I loaded the new Bios 3304 yesterday and it hasn't "lost" the wifi card yet. AOA 150 - 1570 model. Power save mode for the card is set to Maximum.

 

[melhiore]

Ah yes the wireless card dropping your connection, bottom Line. . . I replace the card, got ride of the Atheros and replace it with an Intel 3945ABG, worked great for me, no bios update fixes, just a different card

Planning to do the same. Atheros dissapointed me couple of times already and I decided to take Intel Wireless 5300 card from Amazon... Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Wireless- ... 846&sr=8-1

On top of that to have full 802.11n functionality I'm taking WiFi aerial from Oxfordtec: http://www.oxfordtec.com/uk/p172/Laptop ... _info.html

 

[Nightwhisper]

good luck doing the packet inejction with the intel card

I've ordered a ATHEROS AR5006XS let's hope it works and I can finally use wi-fi!

 

[melhiore]

good luck doing the packet inejction with the intel card

Do you know about any problems I'm not aware of??

 

[Nightwhisper]

I've had lot of problems in the past with intel cards under linux while Atheros card worked flawlessy.. until this acer one' that refuse to wake up..

 

[melhiore]

I've had lot of problems in the past with intel cards under linux while Atheros card worked flawlessy.. until this acer one' that refuse to wake up..

I see now. But since probably 2.4.26 Intel drivers are in Kernel and there is no problem with those cards anymore...


By the way. Most of 802.11n card have 3 antenna connectors. I know I can use two existing antennas from AA1. On top of that I have one extra antenna taken from Oxfordtec. How to connect them to plugs?? Which plug is which antenna?? Is it preferable to change all of them to one type??

 

[goapy]

good luck doing the packet inejction with the intel card

I've ordered a ATHEROS AR5006XS let's hope it works and I can finally use wi-fi!

Are you sure that you ordered a AR5006XS? I don't see a mini pci express card for the AR5006XS design, which uses the AR5414 processor.

I'm using a AR5006EXS (Gigabyte GNWI07HT-S0), which uses the AR5424 processor. This card has been working perfectly since I obtained it about ten days ago, I recommend it highly. I strongly suggest that you use the Atheros Client/Utility to manage the card in XP rather than windows zero wireless configuration. My favorite version of the Atheros Client/Utility is 42214 (which is not the latest). The Atheros Client manages the power settings too, and 'normal' works fine. BTW, don't let windows update replace the Atheros driver, the windows update version sucks!

If you run Vista, you can't use the Atheros Clienty/Utility - but you should not use the default Vista Atheros driver or the Atheros driver that Vista wants to get from windows update. The signal strength meter is way off in these versions on Vista. I use version 42214 of the Atheros driver on Vista as well, even though Vista manages the card.

If you're running linux, the default madwifi drivers work fine without any of the above issues.

 

[Nightwhisper]

I buyed this link it's the right connector right?

anyway I'll use linux, so madwifi drivers all the way!

 

[goapy]

I buyed this link it's the right connector right?

anyway I'll use linux, so madwifi drivers all the way!

No, that is the wrong connector. That is full-sized mini-pci, not mini-pci express - which the AA1 requires.

Like either of these:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products....aspx?ProductID=2609&ProductName=GN-WI07HT-RH

http://www.sparklan.com/product_details.php?prod_id=132

I'm using the above Gigabyte card.

 

[Nightwhisper]

awww seen my fault! Never do order on ebay at late night

Searched for your same card but found only from china or USA and I don't want to wait 20days to receive it.. I guess I'll try the intel one.

anyway no one else found a solution to make the damn internal original atheros card of acer one works as it should do?

 

[melhiore]

Searched for your same card but found only from china or USA and I don't want to wait 20days to receive it.

http://www.oxfordtec.com/uk/MiniPCI-EXP ... index.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Wireless- ... 630&sr=8-1

I would prefer Intel. But choice is yours...