WDN4800 intermittent problem

[amillionmarmots]

My old USB Wifi broke and I didn't much care for the flaky drivers so I was happy to see the recommendation for the TP-Link WDN4800. It's not working out so well for me.

To get a handle on the problems I'm having, I'm mostly pinging my router. Mostly, pings come back in 1-3 ms. Sometimes, though, it gets uneven, dropping some pings and others come in late. For example:

Mon Sep 3 10:32:42 EDT 2012 , 64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=1.348 ms
Mon Sep 3 10:32:52 EDT 2012 ,
Mon Sep 3 10:33:13 EDT 2012 , 64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=981.540 ms
Mon Sep 3 10:33:24 EDT 2012 ,
Mon Sep 3 10:33:45 EDT 2012 , 64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=1.934 ms
Mon Sep 3 10:33:55 EDT 2012 ,
Mon Sep 3 10:34:16 EDT 2012 , 64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=1242.830 ms
Mon Sep 3 10:34:28 EDT 2012 , 64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=2.295 ms
Mon Sep 3 10:34:38 EDT 2012 , 64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=1.524 ms

Apologies for the format, it's just my hacky bash to log this stuff. Any line with nothing after the comma is a dropped packet. This can go on for several minutes at a time.

Then, sometimes it stops working entirely. It still says it's connected in my network prefpane but I can't ping anything. If I turn Wifi off and back on again in the menu bar it starts working again immediately. But it seems like it will never fix itself if I leave it alone.

I use other devices with the network no problem. Does anyone have any ideas about what is wrong here? Thanks.

 

[amillionmarmots]

Nothing? OK. Well in anyone else has the same problem and finds this thread I should post the result of my further research.

It seems that Wifi drivers in Lion and Mountain Lion have all kinds of weird problems, even for people with Mac hardware. In some cases fresh installs or upgrading to ML fixes it, but some people never had issues before they went to Mountain Lion. I've tried a number of fixes suggested around the web but it's still flaking out on me. My next fix attempt will be trying to restore Snow Leopard drivers as detailed on this page:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...10-macbook-pro-after-upgrade-to-mountain-lion
I'm sort of busy the next few days though and I have no idea where my SL disk is buried so it could take some time.

 

[amillionmarmots]

For the record, the Snow Leopard roll back didn't work for me. First off the step to copy the drivers was wrong, then when I got everything copied and repaired I rebooted and I could even see my wifi interface. After trying a couple more things I went back to my Lion drivers. I'm not sure what to do at this point, other than live with it and hope the ML upgrade fixes things for me. Not quite ready for ML yet.

 

[amillionmarmots]

Sort of solution

I spent a week trying dozens of fixes from around the web (pages like this) but didn't get anywhere. Finally I turned on wifi on my crappy verizon issued router and I get a good connection.

I want to make it completely clear that this doesn't make much sense unless there is still something wrong on this end. I've had no trouble connecting to my Time Capsule with any other device, including this computer when I had the USB wifi. Further, on the TC I changed every setting back and forth, reset the device several times, and physically moved it. I was pretty much ready to give up on the PCI card.

I just want to let anyone in a similar situation know that if they have a similar problem, if nothing else works try a different access point. I'm not 100% satisfied with this as a fix but I am more than happy put the problem aside for a while. Maybe I'll take another run at it when I install Mountain Lion.

 

[jackowild]

Hey did you install ML? If so, do you know if it helped?
I am also having the same problem on Lion where after about 20 minutes of connecting to my router, it stops working but still says I'm connected

 

[trextasy]

I have the same problem, its driving me crazy. Nothing seems to fix it. Just cuts out, says i'm connected but then nothing.

 

[jackowild]

Are you running Mountain Lion Trex?

 

[trextasy]

Yes 10.8.2. Tried a fresh install and same problem persists

 

[amillionmarmots]

Sorry it's been a little while, just noticed the replies. Haven't tried ML yet, don't have a lot of hope that it would help.

The reason I checked back is, after almost a month of it working fine on my Verizon provided router, it started cutting out the same way every couple of hours. I switched back to the Apple Time Capsule, which was giving me trouble in the first place, and it has been solid, at least since the weekend. I'm not aware of any changes in settings, etc around this witch. So I am officially giving up on understanding what the problem is.

 

[dcharlesworth]

I too am experiencing this same problem, I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.8

If I turn the wifi off, and then on, it immediately starts working again. But its super annoying. It also seems like if I'm actively "using it" it works longer, but if I let it rest for a bit, to read a long webpage say, things stop again. This might just be the passage of time however. Its certainly more common than every 20 minutes. Sometimes every 5.