Support NeoGAF

[Ubersnug]

Hello Gaf,

I'm starting to lose my patience with this bloody wireless problem I have. I've just built a new 'puter but I am having a mare of a time trying to get it connected to the interwebs through my BTHome hub wireless router. Here is the scenario that I posted onto the Asus forums:

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I'm currently suffering from an immensely frustrating problem and I'm not entirely sure if the Motherboard is to Blame. First of all, my specs:

Rampage 2 Gene Motherboard
Core I7 920 D0 @ 2.66 (Not overclocked at this time)
6BG (3 x 2GB) Corsair X3 DDR 3 1600MHz
Powercolor ATI 4790 1GB PCI/E
1 x 1TB Samsung F1 Sata HDD
1 x 160GB Matrox something Sata HDD
1 x Logitech Blu Ray/HD DVD/DVD RW Sata Drive
Tagan TG600 PSU
Alphacool LCD connected via USB header.

and

Asus WL-138g V2 Wireless PCI Card / Safecom swlp-54108 Wireless PCI card

To start with, I installed the Windows 7 Beta. Everything worked great, apart from the supplied MOBO drivers not appearing to work from the CD. At this point I had installed the WL-138g V2 into the solitary PCI slot on the motherboard.

Windows 7 had installed default drivers for it during installation and reported no issues with the device. Using the Zero configuration tool, the WL-138g V2 card was having issues picking up my Wireless router. Sometimes it would show up, sometimes it would just dissapear. On the odd occasion it did show up, any attempt to connect to it would result in Windows saying that it could not connect, despite entering the correct WEP key more than once.

So, decided to install the drivers from the supplied disk and the first thing that was happening was that the ASUS WLAN control center was causing my PC to slow right down. Pausing every couple of seconds. I persevered to see if it would connect and, unfortunately it still couldn't connect. Turned off the ASUS WLAN control center and tried connected via Zero configuration again and still, no successful connection.

It's at this point I would like to point out that the room in question has a Dell computer, a Rock Laptop, an Xbox 360 and an IPhone successfully connecting to my wireless router (BT Home hub - configured for DHCP and no mac filtering or limited IP addresse range either). Also, when I first tried connecting to the wireless router the PC was about 3/4 feet away from it and with no intervening walls.

Checking on the web I noticed that there have been other owners of the same card and using Windows 7 beta (even Vista 64bit) where having the same issue as me. Reading their plight, I discovered that some users where using Broadcom drivers (43XX drivers) since the ASUS card uses that chipset. I downloaded these drivers and tried again and still suffered the same Result as I had described above....

So, I decided to get rid of the Beta and try going back to XP Professional edition. Installed this, up to Service pack 2 and then installed the drivers that came with my WL-138g V2 card. Again, I was suffering the same problems using the ASUS WLAN control centre. Turned this off and tried zero configuration and I eventually got a connection. HUZZAH!.........but, I was only connected at 28Mbps and the speed was terrible. So, I tried getting the Broadcom drivers (as explained above) for XP. Went through all the scenarios as above and this time I wasn't even connecting this time.

This was getting beyond the joke now...

I contacted ASUS support and got very little help from them other than being told that the Wireless card has no driver support for Windows 7 yet. Yeah, thanks alot...

A friend at work passed me his spare Safecom swlp-54108 Wireless PCI card, saying that he had previously used it in his and his daughters PC.

I installed this with the most up to date drivers from the safecom website. First of all I tried connecting via the Zero configuration tool. Successfully detected the router but, again COULD NOT CONNECT. This time whenever I tried to connect I would get a message telling me that the wireless network was no longer available and I should rescan again. So, I would rescan, I would pick up my network and try to connect again. Only to get the same message. Over and over...

I tried again, this time with the safecom connection tool. This time my PC was suffering from pauses every couple of seconds (same as what happened above using the ASUS tool) and I still couldn't connect to the network.

One thing I did notice was that the ASUS WLAN connection center and the safecon connection tool seemed to take issue with the Alphacool drivers when the PC would boot up and give me an EAccessViolation error with the Alphacool application. However, it didn't stop the LCD screen from working. However, forcing the wireless card to use zero configuration stopped this problem. (also, I didn't have the LCD screen installed with I was using Windows 7 so the problem has been consistent with and without this connected).

So, as of this moment, if I want to connect to the internet, I am having to use a 10M Cat5 cable running from one end of the flat to the other (Yup, connection works perfectly via a wired connection).

So, to summerise:

Asus WL-138g V2 won't connect to wireless router via default drivers, official up to date drivers or with broadcom drivers with Windows 7 Beta. With Windowx XP Professional edition I do get a connection but only at a very poor speed of 28Mbps.

Tried with safecom card and can't get a connection whatsoever.

So, my question is: Is there some sort of issue regarding this motherboard and wireless PCI cards? Is there a problem with my Motherboard? Strange that I would get the same problem with two seperate manufacturers of Wireless cards over 2 different operating systems! Can anyone suggest anything else I may have forgotten?

Thanks for your time.

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There you go Gaff, my plight in full. Can some kind soul assist me in my hour of wireless need?

Oh, and before someone suggests it, yes it is plugged in and turned on

Thanks in advance Gaf!

 

[Dedalus]

Dude, I had a BT Home Hub until recently, and it gave me a similar problem of inexplicable wifi loss. My workaround was just to manually change the channel you are broadcasting your wifi.

1. Open your browser and go to bthomehub.home
2. Click on Advanced (put in your admin credentials)
3. Click on Wireless
4. Set it to 802.11g
5. Set the wifi channel to manual
6. Change the wifi channel to something other than the default
6. Leave the other settings, just click save then reboot your machine

This has always worked for me in the past with my *spit* home hub. I was one of the first to get wifi in my neighbourhood, so when people started getting broadband installed they were probably broadcasting their wifi on the same channel as mine, some sort of conflicts must have ensued and thus needed a channel change every so often. Thankfully I've escaped BT in favour of Be* :lol


Good luck


EDIT: this is the screen you want to get to so you can change the wifi channel from Frequencycast.co.uk:

 

[Ubersnug]

Cheers Dedalus,

Ill give that a try tonight but I'm not overly hopeful. Firstly, everyone else in our block of flats has sky broadband, so I don't think there will be too much of an issue with similar hubs conflicting with each other. Secondly, my new PC is the only device that seems to have problems connecting to the Hub via these 2 separate wireless cards (I also have 2 Xbox 360's, a PS3, a Wii, 2 Iphone's, a Rock Laptop, a Macbook, a Dell computer and a PSP successfully connecting via the same hub - not all at the same time I hasten to add.....).

Also, my wireless hub is definitely accepting new connections as when ODST was released 2 weeks ago, 2 of my friends brought their 360's over and connected to LIVE via my Homehub with no problems whatsoever....

am cry.....