wifi flaky, stops with larger transfers

I installed Windows 7 on my new AA1 150 yesterday and find that the wifi performance is quite poor. Whenever I try to copy a larger amount of data from another PC (running XP) on the local network to this one via shares it freaks out sooner or later. I haven't been able yet to transfer more than 60 MB or so in one swoop, despite several tries. Eventually it freaks out when transferring a "bigger" file (something like 5 MB or more), I get a message "network ressource no longer available" or some other eror on the other side and the network on the AA1 is dead. Really dead. Sometimes it still shows "Local and Internet access" as if nothing has happened, sometimes it goes to "Local access". I can disconnect and reconnect to bring it up again. The network symbol shows that the connection has full strength all the time, it's usually just a few meters away from the AP. Looks like a driver bug to me. Has anyone else similar problems?
If I don't transfer "large" amounts the wifi is stable, e.g. I can browse the net as long as I want.
I'm using the driver 7.6.1.184. This is the only driver I installed in addition to what W7 installed. I read on several forums quite diverse descriptions, some people say wifi worked for them out-of-the-box, for some it works only after installing the atheros driver and some tell it works only with a specific driver version. Theoretically it should either work all the time or never out-of-the-box. Explanations?

I have also Fedora 10 installed and I found the wifi on it somewhat flaky as well, but not to this amount. I didn't try any "uploads" to it, but I did a full update which downloaded about 275 MB of files. During that it switched mirrors several times, indicating that there was a problem getting more data. Something I haven't ever seen on wired network ever. But it never went completely down during that less-than-optimal performance, so I think that's a different problem.

 

This may help,

I installed the Launch Manager version on the Acer website that is actually designed for the D150. When I did it no longer worked with the automatically chosen Wifi Adapter that was installed by windows on first boot of Win7.

I tried all the Atheros drivers and settled on the AR5007EG then updated it using windows update to version 7.6.0.172 and had few problems since. I still fight with transfering from a VISTA machine but that's still an unresolved VISTA problem. I have the same issue pushing and pulling to and from a XP machine from the Vista box. Vista is HORRIBLE at file sharing. Maybe because they removed NetBEU??

 

I use this driver which a lot of Windows users seem to use: http://downloads.k0k0.de/EeePC/70x/Driv ... .1.184.exe
Atheros.cz lists it as XP, but it installs just fine on Windows 7. Has had anyone the same problems with this driver and found to have better results with other drivers?
What are your problems concerning Vista? Is that a similar problem as I have (either slow transfer or transfer stops?) or do you have a general problem to access shares on Vista or from Vista? Vista networking/filesharing works just fine in general in a mixed XP/Vista/Win2k3 etc. network.

 

I just went to 6.0.154 after I got a bluescreen transferring a larger file via wget. After bootup I saw in device manager that the driver was missing, so I had to reapply it, this time trying the 6.0.154. I recognized that the wifi led is working with this driver and also that the speed is higher, but it didn't solve my basic problem with transfers stopping. Sometimes I get an error "the path is too deep". If I get this error, the wifi on the AA1 keeps working, just the current connection is dropped. I can reconnect and try again. But the transfer of larger via files via wget still makes the hardware flip. This time it didn't bluescreen, it "just" froze. For the "path too deep" error message I found only this reference: http://teknotes.wordpress.com/2007/08/0 ... -too-deep/ that seems to fit. I wonder if the problem is caused by my access point limiting the transfer window size. However, even if it does that the driver should be able to cope with this and not freeze or bluescreen.
What speed do others get when transferring large files on the network over 54 Mb/s? I get about 1 MB/s. The 1.184 driver wouldn't go higher. The 0.154 goes higher, up to 1,5 MB/s or more. However, then it eventually drops, maybe when it reached that limiting window size. Happens when about 20 - 50 MB have been transferred.
I fear I have to install XP and check what experience I get there :-( I really didn't want to bother with XP on this machine.
You wrote you got a newer driver from WU? I'll check if I get one offered, let's see.

 

WU doesn't offer me a newer driver.

 

I tested on Fedora 10. Transferred a 200 MB file absolutely fine. So, the problem clearly is either Windows 7 or the driver. Has anyone tried to move larger amounts of data within his network? This problem might not occur if you just download from the net. It also didn't occur when I installed a few applications from a network share. I think you need a certain amount of data (at least 50 MB I'd say) and probably a certain speed (at least 1-1.5 MB/s) before it can happen.
Btw, what's your experience with speed? The Fedora setup achieves a steady rate of around 1.5 MB/s, that's 12 Mb/s, not so great for 54 Mb/s I think. I would expect at least half of the nominal rate with a good link. The Windows 7 setup is around 1 MB/s with the 1.184 driver and 1-1.5 MB/s with the 0.154 driver. And both have the problem that they stop the transfer eventually unless it's a "slow" transfer.

 

Don't know why I didn't find this page earlier: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=10036
There's a newer 1.194 driver on it. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the problem either. My test transfer of files to a share stopped at 60 MB and I had to disconnect/connect to make it work again. My first try with the 200 MB file with wget stopped at 7 MB and I had to reactivate it with the disconnect/connect method. Then, amazingly, it went thru until the end. However, right after that it froze. Which is not really an alternative ...

 

This fixed everything for me.

You have to force Windows7 to use this driver, read post below

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=11154#p74846

 

What is "this driver"? 221? No, it doesn't fix the bluescreen problem or the hang when downloading larger files. If it works for you, fine. But then any other driver before this worked as well. The problem I (anhd others) have is that *every* driver either bluescreens orstops in the middle of a download or stops wifi at all. Read my first posting in this thread for a detailed description. I just installed a fresh Win7 in another partition and used the wifi driver coming with it: same problem.So, it's really every driver and not a side-effect of some other software installed later or whatever. I think there is some flaw in the error handling of the wifi stack in Win7 that creates this problem.

 

I don't know man, I installed 7.6.1.221 for the AR5007EG on mine, my kid brothers, and my friends in WIN7 and had no issues on any of them any more. 2-3GB files go fast and smooth. In fact I use Media Center to stream movies from VMCNetflix, Recorded TV shows in DVRMS format, and internet content. I haven't had a single blue screen since upgrading to that driver.

One thing I can tell you is if you have Launchmanager and Synaptics software installed that you should remove them completely and see if the bluescreens go away. The wrong versions of either cause a conflict with the trackpad and wireless and all kinds of funky things happen. To fix it I found the latest versions of both (stolen from the Acer 10" one page) and they work fine with all my drivers and with the 8.9" acer.

 

As I said I installed Win7 completely new in another partition. There is nothing else on it. The problem still happens. "fast and smooth" is very relativ. I *can* view movies that I stream from another PC. Just fine. But that is not "fast and smooth". For "fast and smooth" you would need to measure the real download speed. If your link is not fast enough you may never experience the problem. I'm using wget to measure the speed and it clearly shows that when the speed gets faster the problem occurs reliably. Fedora 10 can go faster without a problem. That's why I think there is some problem with the error handling as the speed obviously is nearing a limit where a lot of drops occur. If I limit the speed explicitely to 11b it works fine (and I still could view movies if I wanted, still it's slow compared to a wired link if I want to copy and not view).