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Wireless Networking Hardware

Wireless Access Point Reliability? 82

Posted by Cliff from the working-wireless dept.
darrelld2 asks: "I'm having problems finding a low cost access point that is reliable. I started searching the web; however, I can't find anyone who has done independent research on access points to find which one is the most dependable. I have had several different brands; Cisco, 3Com, and Netgear. The only one that has lasted more than 6 months was the Cisco. What are other Slashdot users seeing?" Just as an added datapoint, I've been using my Cabletron Wireless AP for well over 2 years, and aside with a (repairable) problem with the power supply, it is still going strong. What have your experiences been with wireless APs?
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Wireless Access Point Reliability? More

Wireless Access Point Reliability?

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  • My Linksys wireless AP/DSL router/4 port switch has run constantly for nearly two years. I just wish I'd paid today's price for it :-)
    • I agree.

      I've had a linksys BEFW11S4 [linksys.com] v1 for almost 3 years now.

      I've never had a problem with it.
      Linksys has always added great new featues to the firmware with upgrades.

      I understand your pain with price.
      I paid $300 dollars for mine and now they cost $99 most places.
      • I've also been using a LinkSys for about 2 years. The only issues were while using VPN from my home LAN to the remote office campus. If my roommate decided to play Diablo 2 online, the router would occasionally shut down.

        Another really good router was the Ugate 3000. Seemed to be more robust than the LinkSys.
    • I've been using my Linksys WAP11 since I bought it almost 2 years ago. Haven't had so much as a single problem with it.

      My friend bought the same one recently (a more recent WAP11) that was dead out of the box. He sent it back to Linksys and quickly got another one, and hasn't had any problems with it in the 2 months or so he's been using it.

      Based on those experiences, and the fact that Linksys is pretty inexpensive, I'd recommend you give them a try (although I've yet to try any of their G products if tha

  • 3Com (Score:1)

    by melete ( 640855 )

    3Com WAPs hava always given me exceptional service. D-Link is a brand I would stay away from, though I use one in my house (it sucks).

    I'd imagine you'll find a lot of praise for NetGear, but I've never used one.
    • I will agree with the dlink sucking. I had one and it always locked up on me. I recently replaced it with a Orinoco BG-2000 [proxim.com] and zero problems and it runs like a dream. I think it also looks better than many of the other stuff out there. It is a bit more expensive but when it comes to computers and tech you really do get what you pay for.
      • I've got a dlink (614+ ?) that has been running for a couple of months straight now... apart from the webadmin sucks bigtime the only trouble is the puny range it has... the signalstrenght is poor in most of the house...

  • What have you been doing with your AP? (Score:3, Informative)

    by eakerin ( 633954 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:07PM (#6466355) Homepage
    I'm just wondering what you've been doing with those AP's that make them die so easily.

    I've got a Linksys, it's been working fine for probably a year now. At work, we use Cisco AP's and they've been running strong for well over 2 years.

    Do you leave it outside in the rain, drop it in the mud, or kick it?

    • Drop kicked it into the mud while raining out. Why is that bad for them?

    • Re:What have you been doing with your AP? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @11:54PM (#6468117) Homepage
      Indeed. I've been using 3Com HomeConnect for going on forever now (well, three or four years *at least*), and it's ticking along just fine. Even after I shortcircuited the board when I tried to hang the unit from the wall using a bent paperclip... [hangs head in shame]. Even after it fell from the wall, smashing onto the floor. And even after making sparks fly when plugging it into its power adapter (stupid screw located beside the power plug, just ideal for making contact with the plug "tip". Bah.)

      Now personally, I can't imagine being any harder on these devices than I've been, short of storing them underwater, so I should think most any decent brandname AP will do just fine.
    • Really. I have an Orinoco in a garage that hasn't had a problem in 2 years. (At the other end of the connection, I have an old 486 with ALL the fans ripped out sitting in another garage. It runs great too!) Joe
      • Joe I went to the URL in your sig, seems broken. Too bad, I was looking for the advice of a solid designer.

        As for WiFi reliability, hell they are only $80 apiece, buy a few identical units and keep spares. Make detailed installation instructions (specifically detailing WEP codes so you don't have to reprogram every laptop in your org) when you install the first one. If that one craters pull out your spare and you are back up and running in about 10 minutes.
    • Heat seems to be the enemy of some APs, both in terms of performance and of longevity. I speak from experience [slashdot.org] on the former, and have heard stories about the latter. Try setting up cooling fans and see if it doesn't make a difference.

      Ralph

    • Using them in the manner you are supposed to; however, usually I have them mounted in the warm place (between 80 - 95 degrees). I think heat brakes them...
  • I hope someone is going to have a counter-example on this one, for D-Link's sake.

    My D-Link DI-614 accesspoint/router has had the habit of crashing from time to time, forcing me to manually reboot it. It happens once or twice a month when the trafic load is high. I have seen other people reporting the same thing on newsgroups/mailinglists, but without any answers to why or what to do about it.
    • Its cause Dlink is crap. I had a DI-713p (1 gen) and it would lock up under high traffic aswell. Nothing could fix it but a manual reboot. It also wasn't uncommon to be unable to acces the admin page for no apparant reason.
      • Its not just the wireless ones either. I run a DLink 704P at home, and every once in a while it inexplicably stops giving out IP addresses, and the admin page is unreachable. The only fix is to cycle power on it. This whole time I thought it might just be my unit, but I guess this is more of a general problem with DLink's router software.

        • My 614 was rather poor too, but most of the problems ceased to exists when I flashed it with the latest software from D-Link roughly 2 months ago...

          Since then the only problem has been the lousy range...

        • I've seen that happen with the Linksys BEFSR11/41 as well, usually as a result of running Kazza or an equivalent. It has happened to several people I know with similar NAT boxes (DLink, Linksys).
    • The only trouble with my DL-614+ is that it doesnt like dirty power. I am about to replace my old ups which has a relay that sticks when the load has been high or the ups got hot. Im going to move that ups over to power the dlink wap. I have only had to unplug/plug my dlink 6 times since november and had to factory reset it once last month after a bad power sag. I think just keeping the power clean would help the thing. DRACO-

  • Linksys WAP11 Version 1 - upgraded firmware (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pbulteel73 ( 559845 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:09PM (#6466377) Homepage
    Believe it or not, I've had this one since they came out (2 years ago or so) and have had to reset it twice. It's pretty reliable and the transfer rates are decent. I have it plugged into it's own interface on my firewall using a crossover cable so I can section if off from my internal net and log^H^H^H protect my network.

    I have heard horror stories about them but I must admit I am a very happy customer. Their PCCards suck though.

    • I have version 2 of the WAP11; while I've only had it for 9 months it has been rock solid. I did a single firmware update to increase security on it, (allowing me to tun off Beacons) it hasn't had any issues at all. Very happy with it.

      I'm also happy with the PCCard I have from Linksys, it has good range and has worked fine, I've had that for about a year. (note: I did notice a lot of people had range issues with their older cards...)

      People can complain all they want about Linksys being low quality, but I'
    • I have a pair of WAP11's bringing me a T1 connection from 1600' away. They've worked perfectly for 1.5 years despite one of them being located in my tool shed where the temperature gets up to 140 F. in the summer. I bought a spare set and have never had to use them. BTW, version 1, upgraded firmware.

    • I must be odd man out. I had one go bad on me (normal office environment). It got into a mode where it would slow way down, and packet sniffing (with etherial) showed that it was trying to "phone home" (a huge number of HTTP puts to an IP address that resolved to labs.linksys.com IIRC). Cycling power seemed to fix it for a day or two. Three others in the same environment seemed fine.

      -- MarkusQ

      P.S. I also have a Netgear (don't recall the model) that goes wonkers in lightning storms--though I can't say

  • DLink DWL-100AP (Score:3, Informative)

    by martinde ( 137088 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:13PM (#6466401) Homepage
    I've had no problems with it so far. I believe I've had it for a year.

    • Re:DLink DWL-100AP (Score:3, Informative)

      by cuyler ( 444961 )
      I've had the DWL-1000AP for just over two years now and it has never had a problem and I have updated the firmware a couple times. The downside now is the product is no longer supported.

      I find that's the biggest problem in the high tech sector - unless you buy very expensive technology and pay for the support you will likely own the product longer than it's supported.

      Some companies are a little better than others when it comes to supporting older products. A quick check of ATI shows they still have very

  • My trusty Apple AirPort (original) (Score:3, Informative)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:16PM (#6466420) Homepage Journal
    I've had an AirPort since shortly after it came out, and it's been running nearly continuously since then. I had the capacitor failure that a lot of the early ones had, and swapped them out myself. I also added a Lucent range extender antenna to boost the signal around the house. but it's been running virtually trouble-free since.

    I don't know about the newer versions, but the original Graphite base station has worked great for me. There are Windows and Java-based configurators available for the older Graphite and Snow 802.11b models. I'm not sure about the Extreme (802.11g) version, though.

    A base station of any brand shouldn't fail as quickly as you are experiencing, I think. If they die quickly, they may be getting too hot or perhaps they're getting really crappy power that stresses the power supply beyond what they're spec'd for.

  • My thoughts (Score:5, Informative)

    by krangomatik ( 535373 ) <rfujikawa@yahooL ... m minus math_god> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:17PM (#6466427)
    When you talk about 'reliability' it sounds like you are talking about longevity. In addition to hw failures you also have to worry about the AP's ability to be upgraded to keep up with new authentication/authorization methods and other such software/firmware improvements. That is the biggest difference between the low end and the high end APs. We use Cisco APs and bridges for this very reason. We were steered this direction because we are a Cisco shop, so I'm not by any means trying to steer people towards Cisco APs. That being said, we have been happy with them, but I also know of people who have AP installs using other 'high-end' APs with similar success.
    At my home I have a Linksys box (one of the gateway/wireless/4 port hub boxes) and it has been working alright for a couple years now. With earlier firmware revs the wireless would occasionally drop, but with the later revs its been pretty good.
  • is about 5 months old and counting. I had a few problems where it locked early on, but it's been running like a clock for a few months now, barring power outages, which have been happening disturbingly often...
  • I have used an apple AirPort for over 2 years now. I do not own a Mac but someone wrote a nice Java based configuration application so you do not need a Mac to use one. They have a lot of nice features and the new ones look even better. (This is my one and only Apple product.)
    • Same here: continuous operation of a graphite Airport at home for 2 years now without a hitch. 4 clients attached mixed Mac/WinXP on a cable modem. I bought another graphite and snow Airport for the office, and they all worked flawlessly.

  • HostAP... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dJCL ( 183345 )
    I just grabbed an old 233Mhz I had sitting around(small form factor Deskpro) and put in a PrismII based card(DLink DWL500 I think) and installed the Linux HostAP driver. It now runs as the access point on my network, and has built in DHCP and DNS servers and firewall capabilities.

    Just find a rock solid card, ignore the AP issue and build your own with Linux! Hey, it really is that simple. And I have used this now for months without an issue at all. Debian Stable with the hostap driver compiled on and a upd
    • You have to be careful to find a card that uses a chipset that is supported by hostap. As you mention, the only chipset (that I'm aware of) that does is the PRISM-x chipset. Luckily, this is a very good chipset, from what I've seen. It works with hostap in FreeBSD (5.1, at least) was well.

      The other chipsets won't work with hostap. Look in the man pages for hostap for a list of all the cards that it supports -- it's quite a long list.

      Note also that, if you go this route, you'll have to set up your own DHCP
    • Yep, same here. I've got an old Pentium 100 with a prism 2 based card, running hostap. It's also got an adsl modem, and is bridging my wired and wireless networks so they all share the same subnet. The wireless clients all use IPSEC ( FreeSWAN )along with MAC address authentication, and it's also running DNS, DHCP and NTP services. In addition the kernel is doing traffic shaping and QOS. This all runs on top of Slackware 8 stripped to the bone. Its' reliable, stable and has been running continiously for mon
    • In the other direction, I took a useless old laptop running Windows 98, put a static route on it, put the wi-fi NIC into peer-to-peer mode, and that is my "access point."

  • AP's (Score:1)

    by blate ( 532322 )
    Personally, I have a 340-series (802.11b) Cisco AP at home, which has been running just fine for about 3 years now. The only real maintenence I've done to it was to upgrade the firmware sometime last year. The only problem with the Cisco boxes is that they're a little expensive; you probably can get one pretty cheaply on Ebay.

    At work, we have several Linksys AP's and I have a Linksys WET11 wireless-to-ethernet bridge at home. I have found Linksys's equipment to be quite reliable and reasonably-priced. Thei
  • About 2 years ago, I purchased an old Belkin Wireless AP. It's been running non-stop for the full two years, but about once a Night I have to reset it manually or else I cannot get any outgoing traffic to work.

  • SMC2655W (Score:2)

    by XDG ( 39932 ) *
    I've been using my SMC2655W for about a year and a half. Rock solid the entire time. Highly recommended.

    -xdg
    • My SMC7004AWBR needs to be rebooted almost daily .. less than a year old.
      • My SMC7004AWBR needs to be rebooted almost daily .. less than a year old.
        Mine too. Stay away from the SMC7004AWBRs!

        I think the problem is that it overheats. I tried raising it up as to increase airflow, and that seemed to help a bit. Still, its not worth it. Don't buy the SMC7004AWBR Barricade. Myself, I'm staying away from all SMC products from now.

    • I had one of these as my AP for 2 1/2 years, until recently when it failed (?bad capacitor). In all that time it never gave a problem. Pity that the 1st failure was terminal!
  • We just decommissioned our Lucent WavePoint II's after 3.5 years of near-perfect service. If it weren't for the 10 Mbps uplink limitation, we'd probably keep them around for a lot longer.

    Our replacements are Proxim AP-600's, and so far they've proven to be less stable. One developed a short on its mainboard and melted down a few days after deployment, and a few others have spurious wireless card failures from time to time. Luckily, a reset from the web or telnet interface seems to bring them back online
    • Why would 10Mbps be a limitation, I'd say 11Mbps wireless wouldn't be able to fill a 10Mbps wire-pipe anyway...
      Not in my experience anyway...
      • That's true for 802.11b, but a 10Mbps uplink is a limitation with 802.11g. I still don't understand why the WavePoint II's came with a 10Mbps uplink. They have two pcmcia card slots that are designed to handle two separate ESSID's. That makes the wired uplink a possible bottleneck.
        • A lot of hardware manufacturers that make "embedded" systems like APs, cable modems, routers, etc used trancievers that the general market would consider "old tech" on their boards so that the product can be made cheaper.... [the board probably has the equiv of a Pent 100 with an ISA bus and a ISA PCMCIA bridge that can handle 2 cards]

          • Actually, the Lucent WavePoint IIe (note - the "e") has a 10/100 port on it.

            However, you're grossly overestimating the CPU in the box :) Both WavePoint II and IIe's run 486 class CPU's in them.

            I can't say with perfect accuracy, but I believe the WP-II's run a 66MHz processor and the IIe's run a 75MHz processor. Anyway, it's along those lines, perhaps it's 75MHz and 100MHz, not sure - regardless, they're 486's.

            Incidentally, they both do have CardBus controllers in them, so they probably could support ne
  • I've had an Aironet AP1100 (from Dell), a Lucent AP-1000, a Dell TrueMobile 1170 wireless base station, and about 3 TrueMobile 1184 wireless routers for up to 2.5 years now and they're all working well. As long as you just want regular 802.11b with no WEP, you're golden. Those are all from just one vendor, though, so I couldn't tell ya how others are (except linksys. i've had an odd issue with the BEFW11S4 V2 that I have here)
    The Linksys Issue: Some BEFW11S4 routers have a problem with some 802.11b/g cards
  • Whatever you do, save yourself a lot of trouble and avoid buying the SpeedStream 2623. It's been a constant source of frustration. Slowdowns are common due to connection troubles between AP and wireless card. In some cases I can start pinging the router while maintaining solid signal strengths and still have 50%+ packet loss. Hard rebooting the AP clears it up most of the time.

    Yes, I'm using the latest firmware recommended by them. Yes, I know what I'm doing. Steer clear.

  • Generally, you need to flash new firmware onto these devices in order to correct bugs, improve performance, etc.

    I've seen many instances of (wireless) router misbehavior due to buggy firmware that has since been fixed and posted to the company's web site.
  • I've had mine for 2 years and it still works great. I run my Zaurus and my Laptop off it.
  • AP's shouldn't die the way they are on you. Could be a power problem (wiring?) or maybe humidity or temperature.

    If you have a UPS, you could try plugging your AP into it to smooth things out a bit.
    • I mount them in the so that they are hidden. Always on a UPS; however, there is usually a bit more heat where I mount them than in the room itself. Not out side their suggested operating tempatures though, 80 - 90 degrees usually. I've had Cisco gear mounted in a room as hot as 110 with no problems there.

      I see so many of them die, because I install them all over. In hotels, in homes, and businesses. Everyone wants the cheapest product possible, and I try to steer them to what I know works through the rough

  • Netgear (Score:4, Informative)

    by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) * on Friday July 18, 2003 @04:05AM (#6468949)
    I had a funny problem with my Netgear ME102 at home. The connection gradually got less and less reliable over distance, finally it could sustain a connection (to a Netgear MA401 802.11b PC card) for no more than a couple of minutes at a time. But the status lights on the WAP itself were showing it was fine. The problem was the power supply - it had failed in such a way that the ME102 could still power up, yet it could not run the radio link. It took 6 weeks or so dealing with Netgear's frankly useless tech support organization to diagnose this. I don't just mean that their people are clueless (altho' they are) and that they barely speak English. Their call centre technology is poor - for example, every time I called, I gave the ticket number the last one had given me, but it wasn't recognized and I had to almost start again from scratch each time. There also appears to be no link between their email and phone tech support groups.

    Nezt time, I'll pay the extra money for Cisco.

  • Cisco, LinkSys & Nokia (Score:2, Informative)

    by kjs3 ( 601225 )
    We are a Cisco shop at work (with the 350-series AP). The hardware has been reliable, though the software has had teething pains. A tad expensive for the home user.

    At home I have a Linksys WAP51AB dual band AP. I've had one or two times where the box has frozen and one time where the A radio froze, but the B didn't. Overall, it's a reasonably good product other than the A radio having disappointing performance and the fact that it seems to have marginal support since the intoduction of the B+G product

  • I don't have an AP your insensitive clod!
  • We've got a mixed bag of stuff: WinXP, OSX, and a Palm Tungsten C. The Airport--Snow version--has been bullet-proof for twenty months and counting. I'd love to extend its range a bit; the only thing it's missing is an external antenna jack.
  • I regularly experience the high volume crashes with my Speedstream 2624 wirless router. I bought it because of PCI card compatiblity, and I've had no problems with their cards (PCI and PCMCIA). But having to physically stop and restart the router stinks.
  • I'll add praise for my Netgear MR314. No problems with it at all. Occasionally I had problems getting a connection with my Netgear MA401 PCMCIA card in my Compaq Presario laptop (I would have to eject the card and reinsert it), but now that I have a Mac G4, I haven't had any problem connecting, and I even have better signal strength than before.
    Long story short, my Netgear wireless router is great, the Netgear laptop card not so much.

  • Reliable AP's (Score:2, Informative)

    by serialdj ( 593159 )
    Hey there,
    Well I've been using both Cisco and D-link AP's for a few years, and have had neglible problems with either of them.
    In our house we are heavy wireless user's and there are times I'm streaming heavy video to one device or another, and have never had much degredation, or packet drops.
  • I have been using this for about 6 mos without a hitch. It is 4port/wireless. I run 2 wireless and 2 wired PCs and have not had to reboot it in about 3 months, and the only reason I had to was my cable modem went down. All of the netgear products I have used in the past have been great.

    I would highly rec. this router.
  • I've used 2 different DLink DI-614+ Router/AP's now and have had great luck. One has been there about a year and was rebooted twice and the other is about 2 motnhs old and hasn't needed a reboot yet. The range is pretty good and the transfer rate is OK. My wired connection is very fast and I get 10,000+ kb/s from computer to computer. They are very cheap (the one I just got was $50 + tax after rebate) and reliable.
  • Since everyone seems to be offering up home-based solutions, I figured I'd pop in and give you a real-world answer. :)

    Enterasys (formerly Cabletron) has a new line of APs out called RoamAbout R2. They have support for 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11a. You can also use one AP to bridge between a G and an A network, or any combination thereof.

    They have full support for 802.1x authentication using a Radius server, re-keying, MAC filtering, etc. You name it, they support it.

    I, too, have had problems with pow

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