gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
Last weekend a couple visiting relatives tried to use my wiFi on their Android tablets/phones and both devices would appear to connect and then break off repeatedly. In addition it appeared that whenever they tried connecting the router (and maybe the cable modem too) locked up and wouldn't allow my own devices (iPhone, iPad, laptops etc) to connect either until the router and modem were reset a couple times. I checked online and found a newer router FW that sounded like it would fix the problem, downloaded and installed it. At first I thought this took care of the problem but pretty soon it became apparent that it just changed the symptoms a bit. Now the Androids could connect and make use of the internet for a while but all devices (Android and others) would lose their connection randomly every 5-30 minutes and after an hour or two the router would lock up again requiring a reset. I was hoping that the router's ill behavior would clear up when the Androids were gone but the random disconnects and hang ups persisted. The router was a D-Link DI-624. One potential issue is that I might have loaded the wrong firmware. D-Link makes about 15 different versions of the DI-624 and it's not easy to tell them apart. I first tried the plain vanilla 624 FW but that one was refused by the bootloader in the router. I then concluded that I had a "REVC" since there was a "C3" near the model name on the router. Their website has a page that's supposed to tell you how to determine your hardware version but it's not model specific and the information there isn't particularly enlightening.
So after the router with new firmware locked up for the third time I decided to buy a new router to replace it. I picked a Belkin "N600 DB" thinking that I should at least upgrade from draft g to draft n standards and the ability to operate at 5.6Ghz might come in handy at some future time (hopefully before the new router becomes a boat anchor). I got that one set up pretty easily only to find that it's not fully backwards compatible with my somewhat obsolete g level wireless print server (NetGear WGPS606). The 606 doesn't understand AES encryption or WPA2 authentication which shouldn't be a problem since the Belkin router is supposed to support WPA authentication and TKIP encryption but it turns out that this is only true if you disable the n level capability of the router. I did try getting help from NetGear support (by phone and by email) but their answer was to contact my printer manufacturer (HP) which clearly had nothing to do with my problem. Belkin support went through the usual complete inability to understand my problem until I explained it (clearly) three times and their final response was that I should update my Belkin firmware. The latest code was one minor rev ahead of what came installed and the revision notes didn't mention anything (beyond various minor fixes) remotely related to my trouble (wanting WPA/TKIP to work on 802.11g with 802.11n enabled). Of course installing the new FW erased all of my custom settings (SSID, nonstandard IP, security, admin pw, authentication/encryption key etc) but I had backed up those settings to my laptop to speed up the reconfiguring.
Unfortunately when I restored my saved configuration to the new FW it screwed up the router something awful. At that point the DHCP would supply IPs outside the subnet (using the default IP instead of my custom one) so I had to do a hard reset in order to gain control again then modify the configuration one more time. Adding to the frustration was a horrible user interface which required multiple reboots since the router can't remember changes made on one page if you switch to another without rebooting first.
So beside ranting, I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions I might try in order to enable the necessary combination of 802.11g with WPA-TKIP and 802.11n (preferably with WPA2-AES on the n stuff). Alternatively I suppose I could replace the print server although I couldn't find any two port (USB) models that are 802.11n capable so I'd be stuck paying $100 for something that won't go any faster than what I've got now except that I could transfer files between computers faster since that ought to run at n speeds.
So after the router with new firmware locked up for the third time I decided to buy a new router to replace it. I picked a Belkin "N600 DB" thinking that I should at least upgrade from draft g to draft n standards and the ability to operate at 5.6Ghz might come in handy at some future time (hopefully before the new router becomes a boat anchor). I got that one set up pretty easily only to find that it's not fully backwards compatible with my somewhat obsolete g level wireless print server (NetGear WGPS606). The 606 doesn't understand AES encryption or WPA2 authentication which shouldn't be a problem since the Belkin router is supposed to support WPA authentication and TKIP encryption but it turns out that this is only true if you disable the n level capability of the router. I did try getting help from NetGear support (by phone and by email) but their answer was to contact my printer manufacturer (HP) which clearly had nothing to do with my problem. Belkin support went through the usual complete inability to understand my problem until I explained it (clearly) three times and their final response was that I should update my Belkin firmware. The latest code was one minor rev ahead of what came installed and the revision notes didn't mention anything (beyond various minor fixes) remotely related to my trouble (wanting WPA/TKIP to work on 802.11g with 802.11n enabled). Of course installing the new FW erased all of my custom settings (SSID, nonstandard IP, security, admin pw, authentication/encryption key etc) but I had backed up those settings to my laptop to speed up the reconfiguring.
Unfortunately when I restored my saved configuration to the new FW it screwed up the router something awful. At that point the DHCP would supply IPs outside the subnet (using the default IP instead of my custom one) so I had to do a hard reset in order to gain control again then modify the configuration one more time. Adding to the frustration was a horrible user interface which required multiple reboots since the router can't remember changes made on one page if you switch to another without rebooting first.
So beside ranting, I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions I might try in order to enable the necessary combination of 802.11g with WPA-TKIP and 802.11n (preferably with WPA2-AES on the n stuff). Alternatively I suppose I could replace the print server although I couldn't find any two port (USB) models that are 802.11n capable so I'd be stuck paying $100 for something that won't go any faster than what I've got now except that I could transfer files between computers faster since that ought to run at n speeds.
