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Old 09-30-2007, 08:03 PM   #1
njguy
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Default spblat...pls help

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can you outline what you did to fix your wifi woes?
im thnking of returning this and just getting the 8300 from att but would love to have it work right.

your help is appreciated immensely
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Old 09-30-2007, 08:24 PM   #2
spblat
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First I bought a new router, a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54.

Then I installed dd-wrt on it and did a bunch of bandwidth tests.

Those two steps are optional. Only do those if you're a hopeless geek with too much time on your hands. It's cheaper (in money and time) to get the T-Mobile router, use your existing router (which is probably fine given this poll) or simply do your testing at Starbucks.

Then I wiped the blackberry (Options -> Security -> General -> Menu -> Wipe, make sure you have a backup first). I did not immediately connect to my PC to activate my BES connection.

Then I noticed that wifi was working perfectly. And UMA too. Whoa.

Then I hooked to my PC and activated with BES. An hour later I had all my data back and e-mail was working. But wifi and UMA were hosed again.

Then I noticed that my APN was not configured. Went to Options -> Advanced -> TCP and put in "wap.voicestream.com". Pulled the battery. UMA started working.

Then I noticed that wifi wasn't working perfectly. Once I learned how to configure my browser and force it to go over wifi instead of routing my web traffic through my company's BES server, things got much better, and as of last night I am a very happy camper.

...but this whole troubleshooting path only works for my specific symptoms, which I've listed elsewhere. What problems are you having?
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Last edited by spblat; 09-30-2007 at 08:27 PM..
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Old 10-01-2007, 07:02 AM   #3
njguy
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thanks.
my wifi signal on my phone is one bar or two at most, even though i get excellent strength coming form my laptop.
thats issue number one.
then it keeps on going back and forth wifi to edge.

those seem to be the big issues.
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Old 10-01-2007, 06:07 PM   #4
rivviepop
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Simplest thing you can try is changing your WiFi channel. The best (strongest) channels are 1, 6, and 11 because they don't overlap in frequencies; however because something else might be interfering (microwave oven, cordless phone, etc.) you might get better performance out of a random channel like 4 or 7 instead.

It's unique to wherever you love - for example my neighbor's TIVO wifi never worked until we changed his wireless from channel 6 to channel 3, now it works just fine. To much interference with surrounding radio waves is a common problem when you and all your neighbors run Wifi on the usual default channel 6.
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Old 10-01-2007, 06:17 PM   #5
aaronpaul
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Good point, rivviepop. I'm definitely getting better coverage on something other than 6. My problem is that most neighbors power on/off their wifi routers in the evenings. So 11 works fine now, but later I see that there's six or seven wi-fi signals and my UMA signal seems to get flaky again.

My experience:
I'm getting several hours of uninterrupted UMA, then it drops and will get flaky for a while, then connect back up and run strong again. If I force it to reconnect by turning off/on wi-fi - it hooks right back up no problem.

I'm not sure if I really have a problem or if I just notice it because I sit in my home office all day - so I'm in UMA range 95% of the time... maybe I just notice every time it switches in and out...
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Old 10-01-2007, 06:31 PM   #6
rivviepop
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronpaul View Post
My experience:
I'm getting several hours of uninterrupted UMA, then it drops and will get flaky for a while, then connect back up and run strong again. If I force it to reconnect by turning off/on wi-fi - it hooks right back up no problem.
This smells like a router that has some flaky firmware -- I remember (the memory is a bit fuzzy here) reading during research for a project about many home routers not working correctly with sustained BitTorrent sessions; basically the performance slowly degraded the longer the client was connected. I believe there's a blacklist/whitelist of good routers floating around out there - my memory says that it was maybe the uTorrent FAQ?

The point - your router may have some flaky performance issues with the internal NAT hash (routing) table it maintains; perhaps after an extended period of time the presence of your device in the MAC/ip hash/routing table starts to compound in some way eventually leading to an "overload" (my phrase). Releasing the BB from your router and reconnecting has the effect of releasing all the router memory holding those NAT maps and starting again from scratch. A do-over, if you will.

EDIT: yup, it was the uTorrent FAQ.
http://www.utorrent.com/faq.php#Spec..._GL_GS_routers
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Last edited by rivviepop; 10-01-2007 at 06:32 PM..
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Old 10-01-2007, 06:37 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rivviepop View Post
The point - your router may have some flaky performance issues with the internal NAT hash (routing) table it maintains; perhaps after an extended period of time the presence of your device in the MAC/ip hash/routing table starts to compound in some way eventually leading to an "overload" (my phrase). Releasing the BB from your router and reconnecting has the effect of releasing all the router memory holding those NAT maps and starting again from scratch. A do-over, if you will.
Very interesting.... Could this be happening at the cable modem level?? If I'm correct, the modem acts as a router, right? The reason I ask is because I'm getting the issue with two different routers, one is a recent USR with the latest firmware and the other is the T-Mo branded D-link...
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Old 10-01-2007, 06:45 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronpaul View Post
Very interesting.... Could this be happening at the cable modem level?? If I'm correct, the modem acts as a router, right? The reason I ask is because I'm getting the issue with two different routers, one is a recent USR with the latest firmware and the other is the T-Mo branded D-link...
No, the cable modem is "dumb" - it's more of a basic bridge and not a router (caveat, *some* cable modems do include router parts, let's call them dual-mode cable modems). If you're plugging a USR or D-Link behind the cable modem then that's your router that is part of the wifi loop, the one you need to worry about. Since the cable modem is *outside* the NAT device (and wired, not wifi) it shouldn't be a factor in this problem. (I say shouldn't because, well....we all know stuff is weird sometimes)

Hmmm, having it with the D-Link doesn't sound like fun; I'd maybe try the channel switch then, as 11 is popular - 1 actually is the less popular channel, strangely enough. Back in the day (first wifi router devices) they all came with 1 as the default channel, then a lot of them started switching to 11, then finally 6 became the happy medium. 1 has fallen by the wayside nowadays and might be a better choice for your house. (at mine it's channel 7, there are some 20 wifi's I can "see" on my laptop most of them 6 and 11)
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Old 10-02-2007, 05:00 PM   #9
njguy
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Default spblat..whats the update with your device

i am trrying here to fix mine, but here are the new problems?
goes bw uma and gprs (not even edge)

get error messages when i try to make calls : all circuits are busy.
do you still recommend the wap.voicestream?

lastly: if yours is working, can you summarize the changes youve made?

is pent 3 hours on phone today with rim and tmo- wasted time
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Old 10-04-2007, 12:19 PM   #10
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Channel 1 does seem to be working better. I exchanged for a new phone too, which, according to the wi-fi diagnostics screen, is receiving a stronger signal than my original 8320 ever did... -39 in my office vs. -48...
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