Why does wireless networking hate me? (1 Viewer)

[Tekara]

Well I use a bridge in my computer room to link to the cable modem which is in my living room as that's the only room in the house that has a cable outlet. It keeps the place looking a lot cleaner, my personal server sits in the home theater rack, looks good even though it's not geared as a htpc.

The biggest thing that I will advocate for wireless security is to be more secure than your neighbor. If you're more secure than your neighbor the "enemy" will hit them before you. Your not special enough to be a prime target , I doubt you have the fastest internet this side of the mississippi and I can't image you being someone that everyone wants to "crack."

Anyway, If your neighbor has an unprotected wifi spot, all you really need is to hide your ssid. If he has wep go for wpa. If your paranoid turn off your dhcp and restrict internet access by IP and MAC; there's also some programs that you can run on a spare computer that will generate tons of fake AP's to hide yours in.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

WRT54GS



As a side note, in my experimentation week, I got frustrated and opened up my desktop machine, I moved the wireless card up a few slots, dusted the machine out, cleaned the antenna connection, reconnected everything.

The machine speed went up, in theory, and showed 34.0 Mbps in the Xp agent. When i slide the machine back into position against the wall, it dropped to 24.0Mbps.


Now it shows 24 normally, but when trying to playback MP3s off a server, it hiccups a LOT. Now, in my estimation, a high bitrate mp3 is 320 kbps so a standard 10Mbps network should be MORE than enough bandwidth for real time streaming...

256-320kbps mp3 = 320kbps max
320 kbps (kilobits per second = thousands of bits per second) = 320,000 BITS PER SECOND

24Mbps (millions of bits per second) network speed = 24,000,000 bits per second.

320,000 needed, 24,000,000 available = 75 times the bandwidth needed!


However even with 24.0Mbps bandwidth (75 times what would be needed)-- every song drops out at least once per song. And don't even try to open video, it will buffer for 4-5 minutes and still play choppily.

Ugh

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Windows XP itself has support for WPA since... one of the
service packs, 1 or 2, don't remember. Since we all probably run SP2, it's supported.

The problem is that while the router may support it, and Windows supports it, the wireless card(s) sometimes don't.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Hey Vince!

Did you ever resolve your networking issues? Don't know why this thread popped into my mind today...maybe its got something to do with my schizophremic router.

Personally I have yet to have a network that is rock solid all the time. The one I have now isn't bad...but it still needs the occasional tweak.

How's yours goin'?

 

[Thomas Newton]

Maybe there are too many nearby access points on the same channels. You said you saw a half-dozen. With 802.11b and 802.11g, I believe the recommendation is to maintain five-channel spacing between adjacent access points to avoid interference. (With 802.11a, which runs in the 5 GHz band, all channels are usable.)

So you want to

1. Coordinate channel assignment (1, 6, 11) with your neighbors -- or, if they can't be bothered, try to stay at least 5 channels away from their defaults.

2. Make sure that you are using a unique SSID. (If two access points are using the same SSID, and a client connected to access point A decides that the radio signal on access point B now looks stronger, it might switch to access point B.)