Wifi discussion

[craigix]

I was able to connect to my wireless router immediately after inputting the info for it. No problems, as usual.

This is the part that I'm going to focus on. You've now had 3 Pandoras with no problems connecting to your wifi where others have had two (I think Paddy had a third as well) that had major wifi problems. This information has me excited because it does tend to suggest problems with the router.
Whether it is normal behaviour to work and some (questionably large) percentage of routers are doing something different to fail, or the other way and there are some routers doing something out of spec that does allow it to work remains to be seen.
I hope I'm somewhere in this hundred, though probably not for another couple hundred to come

It is a router issue, every Pandora is tested here 20 ft from the router (belkan).

 

[WizardStan]

It is a router issue, every Pandora is tested here 20 ft from the router (belkan).

Not necessarily, unless your testing involves downloading several hundred meg files off a local network without losing connection averaging around (at least) 900KB/s. A lot of people report they're connecting too, but that the connection is lost after a few minutes, or they're experiencing really slow speeds, things which simply connecting and even downloading a small file off the internet might not detect. If you are doing such an exhaustive test, then it's the final nail in the coffin for the routers. Otherwise, the fact that you are getting a connection is just a little more evidence that it's router related but not definitive proof.
I've got access to a half dozen routers. As soon as I get my Pandora, I'll run such tests and see what I can come up with.
Even if it does turn out to be conclusively related to the router, the question then becomes whether the Pandora is doing something slightly out of spec that some routers are allowing, or is the Pandora doing something in spec that may not be properly implemented in all routers.

 

[craigix]

It is a router issue, every Pandora is tested here 20 ft from the router (belkan).

Not necessarily, unless your testing involves downloading several hundred meg files off a local network without losing connection averaging around (at least) 900KB/s. A lot of people report they're connecting too, but that the connection is lost after a few minutes, or they're experiencing really slow speeds, things which simply connecting and even downloading a small file off the internet might not detect. If you are doing such an exhaustive test, then it's the final nail in the coffin for the routers. Otherwise, the fact that you are getting a connection is just a little more evidence that it's router related but not definitive proof.
I've got access to a half dozen routers. As soon as I get my Pandora, I'll run such tests and see what I can come up with.
Even if it does turn out to be conclusively related to the router, the question then becomes whether the Pandora is doing something slightly out of spec that some routers are allowing, or is the Pandora doing something in spec that may not be properly implemented in all routers.

Well units which have been returned for wifi problems seem to work fine with my router, but you're never going to get 900kb from this chipset and antenna, it seems to max out way under that, but you see the same on the phones which use it too. It's obviously just a limitation of a low power chip.

 

[WizardStan]

Well units which have been returned for wifi problems seem to work fine with my router, but you're never going to get 900kb from this chipset and antenna, it seems to max out way under that, but you see the same on the phones which use it too. It's obviously just a limitation of a low power chip.

I used 900KB because that's what those that reported good wifi experience were getting. A few reviews have mentioned it reaching that high, but always via internet. It's my hope that connecting to a local server rather than over the internet will see a modest increase.
But otherwise yes, it is a low power chip. If the 900s turn out to be exceptional and the average is more around 600 or so, then that's how it is, no problem with that. It doesn't yet explain the 50KB/s (or slower) that some people complain about.
No doubt someone will figure it out eventually.

 

[silver]

I was able to connect to my wireless router immediately after inputting the info for it. No problems, as usual.

This is the part that I'm going to focus on. You've now had 3 Pandoras with no problems connecting to your wifi where others have had two (I think Paddy had a third as well) that had major wifi problems. This information has me excited because it does tend to suggest problems with the router.
Whether it is normal behaviour to work and some (questionably large) percentage of routers are doing something different to fail, or the other way and there are some routers doing something out of spec that does allow it to work remains to be seen.
I hope I'm somewhere in this hundred, though probably not for another couple hundred to come

It is a router issue, every Pandora is tested here 20 ft from the router (belkan).

It could be chipset incompatibility between the wifi chip in the router and wifi chip in the Pandora - not all 802.11b/g chipsets are created equal. I used to have a premium small business Draytek Vigor Wireless Router that was outstanding, but had 18months of pain with dropouts, low reported connection strength, wpa issues, everything. I had a desktop with no probs, but tried 2 other laptops which had the same problem, swapped the Vigor under warranty twice two. They denied all faults and blamed interference. Then, out of the blue, and cheeky firmware update arrived with a "Fixed stability issues with Centrino chipsets" arrived - and 100% lock solid, max range, perfect ever since. The other laptops were also Centrinos hence I never spotted the connection.

I would suggest anyone with geniune wifi issues (and you get a lot of false reports with wifi - neighbours using a microwive can kill wifi on the spot) record their router make model (acutally, some routers change wifi chipset without a change in part number - I know Netgear have done this - so verification may be needed) and see if there is a pattern.

 

[craigix]

but you're never going to get 900kb from this chipset and antenna

in my mom's house (10 mbps), desktop - 1100kb, pandora - 813kB/s - almost there

I stand corrected - but since my connection is horrible I never see those speeds here. I'm lucky if I get 1.5mbit.

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

edit removed quote i dont know why it was quoted

I think some pandoras might have defective, or worse than others chips...

ive heard repeatedly that pandoras have good reception, can get signal where other deives cant, well, for my pandora, its the opposite.

last week i was at my grandparents, i had to stay within 10 meters of the router to be able to surf, my cousin was 25 meters away and could surf via the wifi on his iphone 3g.
i tried at that distance too, and i could connect to the wifi, but speeds were so slow loading pages just timed out :/

 

[sebt3]

I was one fo those that reported 900KB.
This is realy exceptionnal. I do only get that kind of speed for a _short_ time. Download ususally start at that speed, but quickly drop to a 400K-600K (which is my average).

Now on the router side : I have a dlink WBR-2310. It's original firmware is crap :
- It was getting very hot if I used p2p... until it crashed
- My wii got a lot's of trouble getting wifi up
- My son netbook wasn't able to maintain a wifi connection for more than 30mn.

So I changed the firmware to the DI-624+ revC (same hardware, was my previous router too before I burned it plugin the wrong power-supply)
Since I changed the firmware, everything was fine.

Now my pandora never saw the initial firmware of my router, but I guess I wouldn't be very happy with it's wifi performance.
People see wifi router as an alweais working appliance. But in the end of the days it is not :
they are just specialized hardware running software. All this is butched to get maximum profit

 

[craigix]

I have an ancient Belkin router on which I've never touched the firmware. It's about 6-7 years old. Pandoras love it. Works great.

 

[DrCJBoduma]

Not sure if this is right topic to mention this but......

When browsing I often find I have to reload the page a number if times before it will load (otherwise it just does nothing) I find this the case also when downloading, I have to sometimes pause and then unpause the download a number of times to get it to download a file.

CJ

 

[SomeGuy99]

It has worse range and reception than my first gen Ipod Touch. I have tested them both.

 

[silver]

It has worse range and reception than my first gen Ipod Touch. I have tested them both.

Only other thing I didn't mention was antennae. Assuming the wifi chip is integrated to the board, is there an anteannae in the case that is then soldered onto the PCB in the UK? I've soldered some myself building PCI wireless cards based on mini-pci wifi cards - where you chop off the SMA/RPSMA connector and solder the cable direct. You lose 6db or so through the join - dodgy soldering could kill reception I suspect. This is speculation though - I've not looked at the antennae setup, and I suspect its a more professional approach.

Someone with a dodgy wifi issue on multiple routers may have a antennae issue though.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, we got some guy who wants to work on the WiFi driver.
He's pretty experienced with those things.

First idea he had when we talked about your reports is that there is a problem in testing routing in the driver.
When a router and a WiFi device connect, they run a few tests to figure out what connection settings are best.
If there is some problem here, the router could use wrong settings which could lead to a very slow speed as well as some other weird things (I know one user reported that the Pandora messed up DHCP in his router - and some users report problems when you use the Pandora together with multiple devices on one router as well).

This test is being done every few minutes (varies depending on hardware), so it might also be the reason that the connection drops after about 10 minutes for some (the test might get a result at the first time, but might fail when it retests it and drops the connection).

He'll start looking at the code from tomorrow on, let's see what he finds out.

 

[tsh]

Only other thing I didn't mention was antennae. Assuming the wifi chip is integrated to the board, is there an anteannae in the case that is then soldered onto the PCB in the UK? I've soldered some myself building PCI wireless cards based on mini-pci wifi cards - where you chop off the SMA/RPSMA connector and solder the cable direct. You lose 6db or so through the join - dodgy soldering could kill reception I suspect. This is speculation though - I've not looked at the antennae setup, and I suspect its a more professional approach.

Someone with a dodgy wifi issue on multiple routers may have a antennae issue though.

There is a low-profile push fit connector for the antenna (maybe 3mm diameter). Certainly I get a stronger signal with my pandora than on many other devices, but my connection is more stable at work (link 57/70 53dBm) than it seems to be at home when the signal can be stronger. At home, it seems to sulk sometimes. First pings are slow (which may well be due to powersaving, which I still have enabled), but it's not a straightforward go/no go problem. Router type may have a big influence (certainly nothing new there, particularly if you look back at some of the phone forums from a few years ago)

 

[WizardStan]

He'll start looking at the code from tomorrow on, let's see what he finds out.

Mention that someone reported great success when limiting the speeds to 11MB/s (ie, CCK modulation) where it was failing at other speeds (ie, OFDM). That may give him some hints on where to look.

 

[Mofokubik]

While downloading some apps from the appstore last night, I was getting around 3.5KB/s - my connection is normally slow seeing as how my room is directly above the router and gets bad signal, but it's not usually that slow!! So I moved the pandora right next to the router and it jumped up to about 45KB/s.

I had previously messed with my routers settings almost a year ago, so I changed some of the wireless settings (ie fragmentation threshold) back to normal and my speed jumped up to about 120KB/s and it seems to be more stable than before.

I'm not disappointed, but with that said, I am considering the purchase a wifi dongle.

I have a linksys router by the way...

 

[PokeParadox]

My wifi generally works fine on the Pand... and I've had less problems more recently. occasionally something happens and I got stuck with 20k speeds but I just restart the Pandora and it's working fine again...
Sometimes it's my router that needs the restart.
I think there are still some quirks to iron out, sure, but the "wifi problem" isn't bad if you have your wireless network setup right.

 

[sebt3]

Sometimes it's my router that needs the restart.

I do have a cron to do just that every day at 4 in the morning
(that wasn't related to the P. but to the netbook...)

 

[Trip]

Thought I'd better add this too. Won't be the reason for all of the problems but can contribute to them. Worth checking that your router supports the full spec or not

A lot of the time it's because the router company was trying to get ahead in the market and released the new model of router before the new wireless spec was finalised. This means that the router doesn't completely comply with the full wireless spec and some of the more advanced features don't work.

 

[skeezix]

I've got a WRT54G (linux version) .. many many years old, but such a good router I'll never replace it I've got it running Tomato firmware.

I get about 150KB/s, which is a bit slow, but quite usable.

The oddity I have is the wifi is totally fubar'd if my laptop is 'on' (I've not experimented further .. what distance away from laptop remedies it, etc); anyone ever heard of such a thing before? I thought wifi was totally shot on the unit until I tried it from my bedroom one day, and it worked great. Took me awhile to realize the issue .. I can turn laptop wifi off and poof, pandora works.. turn wifi back on, and dead, connection goes to hell and hangs. Amazing (Really very annoying, since when I'm doing development, it would be nice to scp the files back and forth, for instance, but alas not

jeff