Hi Folks
I’ve a 2820Vn and I love the router, but am unconvinced about the WAP part; I have just ordered another WAP to verify whether my issues are due to the Draytek or not. It's not as bad since they released the fixed firmware in May, but I'm still having a good few problems (just installed 3.3.2.1 but the problems remain). The current issues could of course not be Draytek problems; I've a strong feeling that they are all due to RF interference and the new AP will help me determine this once and for all.
I've sold the Logitech Duet (it is pretty poor with other WAP's but it simply couldn't be made to work with the Draytek; see my other posts) and have just been using 2 HP iPAQ PDA's as control points for my music system (Linn DS) with varying degrees of success (and not).
The main room has an iPAQ 214 PDA which is through a single brick wall from the Draytek; the radio path length is about 3m plus 10cm brick. The other room has an iPAQ 614 PDA which is a 7m radio path; that path is through one closed wooden door and another open wooden door (but other than the closed door, it's pretty close to a clear radio 'line of sight'). It's a high density population area (yes, with me being particularly dense) and there are thus stacks of AP's about, but fortunately, they all seem to be on ch1 or ch11; leaving ch6 totally free for me (well, free from other conflicting AP's, but there are lots and lots of other things on the 2.4GC/s band that wouldn't show up as live AP's).
My iPQA's can run for hours without issue, then suddenly they'll drop out together; this is shown by the control point software locking up. If I run the system on 802.11b only, it’s pretty stable, but if I try 802.11g only, it falls over regularly; it can run for hours then drop out every 10 minutes. I’ve also noticed responsiveness delays when using the volume controls on the control points; usually a sign of a wireless problem (this happens with 802.11b or 802.11g).
I've noticed that the ‘far’ one (the 614 a whole 7m away) displays full signal strength but sometimes (without moving it) the signal drops to one bar (no idea how useful nor reliable the WM signal meter is; I'd suspect that it's probably not very great). The nearer one (iPAQ 214) remains at full scale deflection all the time.
All the above could be related to severe RF interference (from something other than an AP). I’ve also just noticed that there might be a trend for total control point software lock-ups to get worse at night; I just noticed this yesterday, so it needs more checking to verify or dismiss it.
I must admit that I’ve had wireless problems for too long now and have just ordered a dedicated WAP to add to the Draytek (a D-Link DWL-3200AP 108Mbps Enterprise Managed WAP) and will try seeing if that works any better. In some ways, I’m hoping it doesn’t as that’ll show the Draytek AP is all okay, that said, in most ways I’m hoping it will as that would both justify the somewhat large expense and solve the wireless problems that have been plaguing me all year.
I’ll let you know how I get on.
Bri
