WLAN / WIFI Card Issues

my atheros card is always appearing with the default windows configuration in the device manager , but not working after a while, even if the WLAN connection is strong.
but give it a try - and test the tool (I still hope that "emitremus" is right - I dream of a connection lasting 3 days. I cannot say not yet that the tool solves the problem entirely... - and the tool configuration options are not the best.
but you cannot do anything wrong.

m

 

I just installed a Trendnet TEW-424UB USB wireless adapter. Wireless network now works fine. Problem is most likely with the Atheros chip or its driver. The usb device does seem to cut battery life a bit

 

Sometimes the Wifi Card will still appear in the device manager but not actually be recognised. Next time it happens (hopefully not), try scan for new hardware in device manager.

 

Are you running BIOS version 3114? Reverting back to Bios 3109 solved the issue for me.

 

It may be a BIOS problem, but it smacks of insufficient antenna power, and poor receiving amplification. Note the POST where it works fine on AC, but not so good on battery. This could be rooted in the power-saving/ power management schemes. One should expect 16mW transmit power (0.9V at 18ma: a 50 ohm load). And this naturally brings up the antenna itself not being of good quality or proper design. It should at least be an "L" shape or like ASUS, a 3D "L".

 

I'm stick with the 3114 BIOS and please also note that I updated my atheros driver to the latest, by the way its not toshiba tool. it's an atheros own tool, but for some reason only distributed to several laptop. In my case this tool also control and work better with AOA 150 wireless switch, whenever I switched wireless of it shows that the signal bar closed and vice versa.
@Yuwing, why don't you give it a try, I think it will also solve your problem

 

Your problem is fixed in this thread viewtopic.php?f=34&t=2187

-Dom

 

I'm going out of my mind. After several days when the WiFi seemed to work fine, it's now gotten to the point where it's unusable.

At first I had the problem where the card was visible, but couldn't see any networks. Now I have the problem where the card just randomly vanishes, as far as the system's concerned.

I'm on an XP150. I've downloaded the Toshiba tool and used it to upgrade to the latest drivers, and I'm always careful to set the power management to "Off." But this problem happens whether or not the machine's on AC or DC power.

Sometimes I can work for a half hour before this happens. Sometimes five minutes. But it always happens.

I'm going crazy. I love this machine, but if I can't do WiFi, it's pretty useless.

I'm on Bios 3114 (preinstalled).

I'm a little leery of downgrading to the previous version, but I'll try if I have to.

Has anyone tried replacing the Atheros card with something else? Does it work any better/differently?

I'm willing to give it a try; I dread returning this puppy to Best Buy.

Eric

 

Wanted to report on my experience with this issue -- i.e. disappearing WLAN card. My AA1 came with BIOS 3114 preinstalled, and several posts in this thread and others pointed to this version as a possible culprit. I tried any and all (reasonable) sugestions, nothing worked.

In desperation, I downgraded to BIOS 3109. Since then, NO RANDOM DISAPPEARANCES of the WLAN card, hours of trouble-free surfing.

Give it a try if you're still having this problem. I'm running Linpus Linux with a few mods, nothing extreme. I don't know what 3114 is supposed to add/fix, but I don't care at this point. The machine was almost unusable for its intended purpose with all the WLAN problems.

Pauline

 

I tried the Atheros Client Utility, and I also tried the latest driver (5.2.0.339, I think). The Wifi still disappears. This is obviously intolerable. By the way, this is on WinXP.

Is the consensus that we should all flash back to 3109? Where is 3109, anyway? I don't see a download link or instructions for it. Do we lose any functionality, or suffer any bugs, by reverting to 3109 on WinXP?

Has anyone successfully told Acer that they goofed up big-time with 3114?

 

I don't know whether to wait for another bios release and use that to solve the problem or use the old bios. also, can someone tell me how to flash the AAO? I found the old bios here:

http://www.humyo.com/240597-160432785

 

I haven't had these Wifi/Lan issues (knocking on wood) but I did find my hibernate/standby feature a bit glitchy. Sometimes it won't go into hibernate or standby at all, just says preparing to hibernate and then freezes. Have to power off and on. I just updated to the 2.60 Atheros drivers from Windows Update site and seems to work a bit more stable. I turned off hibernation function and just use standby now. Really, my windows takes about a minute to boot up, I'm not that impatient. I don't find hibernating that much of a difference for startup time to deal with the Wifi/Lan issues in this thread. I can wait until Acer fixes this problem. Other then this, this notebook has proving to be an asset for my use.

My 2 cents.

Damen

 

The other problem I've been running into more and more recently is that even when I can access the WiFi card, my connections often hang, so that I have to use the "repair" command to be able to use the web, email, etc., again. Sometimes it's necessary to do this ever few minutes, which is driving me crazy.

I am hoping that downgrading the BIOS might help. Other than that, it looks like I might have to bite the bullet and crack my AAO and swap the WiFi card.

I'm wondering if the WiFi card in my Intel Mac Mini would fit. Any ideas?

Eric

 

Hi there,

What I can see in this thread the problem could be related to the BIOS or WLAN card driver or WLAN HW.
Has someone here switched the wlan card to another one to see if that helps?

I'm thinking about doing that. A new card is about 25€ which is not that expensive.

Adding to the problem description: I have had my AA1-150 for about 2 weeks and the Wlan has stopped working about 5 times after sleep mode and one time when windows was running.
If I disable and then try to enable the wlan card in windows, windows is unable to enable the wlan card.
Rebooting does not work either. After reboot the Wlan card is removed from device manager.
Only thing I can do is to power down and power up again.
I have also tried to disable the power saving settings in the wlan card with no success. (The AC power has always been connected when the problem appears)
I'm running the new bios and new wlan driver.

I will also open a support case at acer and hope that everyone elde here having this problem are doing the same to get some pressure on acer support.

Regards
/Andreas

 

Hey, I've got the 6cell, 120gb XP edition AAO and thought I haven't really been having many issues with wireless, I am having an issue with speed. I am sitting right next to my router and am experiencing lower internet speeds than what I'd get on my desktop which is further away. My connection is great and the speed is 54 mbps. I have a sneaking suspicion that my card is for some reason using b instead of g for wireless, is there any way to find out?

 

so, a little update concerning the wifi issues:
I tried everything except the bios downgrade (I still use 3114)
I just can say that my wifi works now very stable with the proposed driver update from microsoft (version .260, the newest driver .339 was not very stable) in combination with the toshiba-atheros tool.
this works now already for a few days quite stable.
but there are still sometimes problems when I send the AAO to bed (hibernate, sleep) and I still have to reactivate the card through the device manager (happens also very rarely after some hours wifi connection).
I can or have to live with it for the moment.

martin
p.s. there is a fan control udate (version 1.0) !!! works well!

 

I have the XP Home, 6 cell version of the One. My Wifi driver is 7.6.0.260. Twice I've experienced no connection to the internet but my wireless icon is still active and still displays a connection. However, when I try to repair the connection, it ceases to function and just comes up with errors when I try to reconnect saying it cannot. The only thing that fixes this is rebooting although, I have not tried flicking the Wifi switch and will do so if/when it happens again. Not a huge issue, but just thought I'd put it out there in case someone is experiencing something similar.

 

I am on my second machine( XP, 120g) bin as many days this is indeed very annoying. I am no expert but it seems in my experience that windows update has something to do with this, at least with the Windows machines, as each time I have updates waiting the wifi card stops working and does not work thereafter. Widows will then proceed to not discover the card, the Acer recovery tool gives message "card is not inserted" , restore to factory defaults does not work either, however when you plug in a network cable Bob's your uncle. When I did not have the Ethernet cable handy system restore got it back but this seems drastic and in itself is not the solution, just temporary quick fixes as it keeps on happening again and again.

 

So I have had the problem where the wifi completely disapears once. I've tried everything nothing worked but all the sudden it sort of fixed it self and the wifi was fully functioning again. Since then (almost a week ago) I have not experienced the problem. I been offered a replacement but I will have to wait a couple of weeks until the new shipment arrives as it is completely sold out in my country. My concern is if I accept the replacement it will have the same fault but that the wifi disapearing will happen multiple times every day as some of you have described. So my question to you guys is: Should I keep this one and cross my fingers and hope the wifi will not disapear again (bear in mind it has only happened once) or should I accept the replacement when it arrives and pray for bette luck?

 

Count me in - issues with WiFi coming out of StandBy in Win XP Home.

More info here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2979

Cheers!