[The Sand]

I hooked up my new Bold 9000 to my Wireless G MBR1000 router (it has a Sprint 598U modem) and my wireless N Linksys router who is Time Warner. I noticed the Bold is WAY faster. Odd too, because you would think the wireless G router I have would be the same as the wireless G the blackberry runs. But it's not - again, it's WAY faster

Anyway, it will be running fine but then drops. It goes from a green check to a -. Then I have to screw around again to get it to connect. Same thing for my mother's (I hooked up hers too.)

Is that normal... to just "lose" the connection? I was hoping that while in the house this thing would just stay connected and that's the connection I would use for the BB.

Any feedback would be great!

Thanks,
Sandy

[aiharkness]

Wirelessly posted (8820)

Is there any pattern, such as distance from the router, or the part of the house you are located when it drops?

Have you power cycled the router and modem?

[The Sand]

Wirelessly posted

The BB won't drop the wifi as long as the computer stays off - if I turn the computer on it will drop - it is not router specific either - and it doesn't matter which router the computer is using either. The BB drops with computer on period. This is my first post done from BB so please forgive if it doesn't go well..

Sandy

[aiharkness]

Wirelessly posted (8820)

Is there something running on the computer that is sucking up the bandwidth when the blackberry drops the connection? Maybe a podcatcher or something?

[The Sand]

Well the BB isn’t running “flawlessly” on WiFi even with the computer off. It is a lot better though – but not completely consistent. In the end this is like the BB Bluetooth which does the same type of thing to me. Sometimes I will be able to sync via Bluetooth and other times a DM error message will occur at the end. I seem to get no “consistency” from using anything other than my AT&T network and my USB cable. Which is a real bummer… I was excited about this feature and really wanted it to work. I will call AT&T/BB and see if they can help me with any ideas.

Also, I guess I need to keep in mind they just went through a major outage this week and maybe everything isn’t “up to speed” yet. They might be working on some things and it is possible their WiFi is having trouble. I tried to get the WiFi to work the night the outage happened and couldn’t. I couldn’t get ANYTHING to work on the BB that night… maybe they haven’t fully recovered.

Thanks for your insight here… you are always very helpful and your tips and ideas are much appreciated!

Sandy

[aiharkness]

Wirelessly posted (8820)

One thing though. The outage and anything that may or may not be going on with your carrier and/or RIM should not have anything to do with your blackberry staying connected to your router. Getting data throughput is a different matter. But what you described was a connection issue, right?

[The Sand]

The BB can connect to both routers via WiFi. I configured both routers and "reserved" the BB's so they have internet access. Everything will work fine for a period of time (no set time table) and then randomly it will drop... and I will look down and the WiFi symbol is grayed out and when you look at manage connections there is no green check but a - symbol. It won't hold onto the connection. It is not location based drop because everything is right here... no upstairs or anything.

The night of the outage I couldn't even connect... nothing worked that night.

It's an odd problem... it is hard to troubleshoot when something works "part" of the time.

Sandy

[aiharkness]

That's weird. I've read of people having trouble getting a connection in the first place, getting the router to see the blackberry, that sort of thing. But losing connection, data throughput dropping to a trickle, that for me is always corrected with rebooting the router and the modem.

I didn't do anything special as far as setting up the router for the blackberry. It just worked. FWIW. Wish I knew more about it.

[The Sand]

On another note - it runs fine with no drops as long as I disconnect from the AT&T network. Which means nobody can call me, but everything else will run WiFi without dropping.

Sandy

[The Sand]

Originally Posted by aiharkness

That's weird. I've read of people having trouble getting a connection in the first place, getting the router to see the blackberry, that sort of thing. But losing connection, data throughput dropping to a trickle, that for me is always corrected with rebooting the router and the modem.

I didn't do anything special as far as setting up the router for the blackberry. It just worked. FWIW. Wish I knew more about it.

You are so right. Rebooting should fix this... it's an odd problem to have. Thanks for your input here. Maybe AT&T/BB will have any answer.

I will post if I get any info...

Thanks!
Sandy

[The Sand]

Okay - I deleted everything and started over. This time I added the network to the BB manually. Instead of adding the BB PIN to the router - I added the PSK of the router to the BB. It's been 1 hour and all 3 BB's have held the connection. No dropping!

I can now go eat Christmas Eve dinner knowing my WiFi rocks!

Happy Holidays!

Sandy

[aiharkness]

Wirelessly posted (8820)

Man, you are over my head. I just used the wizard, entered my network name and network password and I was good to go. But I'm glad you got it working.

[The Sand]

It's just fancy names routers give stuff for what is basically, what you said, network name and password-key.

I haven't dropped once --2 hours and counting... (keeping my fingers crossed)... I am hoping for a Christmas miracle here!

Sandy

[tom0100]

I haven't had drops but some thoughts. Is the DHCP in the router setup correctly? odd it dumps when the computer is turned on and requests an IP address from the router.

I had a similar problem of even connecting when I set up the router to use both psk password protection and the MAC address blocking of the Blackberry in the router.

I called tech support who said the stronger I made the switch...the longer it would take the blackberry to 'pickup' the wifi.

I did some testing: I noticed it will be instant if the wifi is 'wideopen'...allowing anyone to connect. It's only slightly slower with WEP key protection...a little slower again then wep with PSK password and much slower with Mac address protection in the router AND PSK password protection enabled....took awhile to test each setting.

I dropped the router messing with MAC address (you can spoof addresses easily anyway). I just you Psk protection. I think WEP is really pretty ok for most people...it's fast and offer SOME security.

[The Sand]

Thanks for your feedback here it does help. We are doing okay but not great and I can find no reason for it except Blackberry could be having some trouble. It will be fine and connected all day and then for love nor money you CAN'T make it happen. They did have a major outage last week so they may not have everything up to speed yet. Because rocking your WiFi show just fine and then... nothing - makes no sense.

As for my routers - they are locked down with every security feature possible enabled because we buy stuff online. I could address changing the settings on the wireless G router - and leave that one for the Blackberry's only for now. At least I could troubleshoot that way - change some settings using your suggestions and see how it goes...

I did buy that Nokia N900 which arrived this morning - it will be interesting to see how another "phone" handles the WiFi - this will help me to understand better if it is coming from the router settings or the Blackberry device.

Once again thanks for passing along what worked for you...

And happy new year!

Sandy

[mario86]

hello...finally i found another person with the same problem i have..... i dont know why, but like your problem, my BB8520 WIFI internet drops all the time, in my case its more the time it goes grey... have you tried something else?? i wanna find a way to know if its a router problem

[The Sand]

I have continued to struggle with this. I don't believe it is the router because I have 2 routers and I can have bad "drop" days from both of them. In other words one router doesn't work better than the other and each router is a from a different company.

I also recently purchased a Nokia N900 and it doesn't drop - neither do any computers in the home - so I believe the problem is the BB device...

I can have both BB's running WifFi perfectly all day and the next day struggle with dropping to the extent I turn it off and forget it.

To get it to be more reliable I will have to call AT&T/BB tech support and see if they have any insight. I just haven't gotten frustrated enough to do that. If/when I do - I will post here what they say.

Sandy

[monkeypaw]

Originally Posted by The Sand

I have continued to struggle with this. I don't believe it is the router because I have 2 routers and I can have bad "drop" days from both of them. In other words one router doesn't work better than the other and each router is a from a different company.

I also recently purchased a Nokia N900 and it doesn't drop - neither do any computers in the home - so I believe the problem is the BB device...

I can have both BB's running WifFi perfectly all day and the next day struggle with dropping to the extent I turn it off and forget it.

To get it to be more reliable I will have to call AT&T/BB tech support and see if they have any insight. I just haven't gotten frustrated enough to do that. If/when I do - I will post here what they say.

Sandy

I don't know how things are with later model BBs, but the 8320 had problems with routers that were N compatible. The 8320 doesn't use N, but they just didn't play nice with some routers with that capability. Also any that had speed boosting technology.

So it may in fact be be the device, but it may be that the device has an issue with the routers you have. It sounds intermittent so diagnosing may be a problem. You'd have to camp out at some other wifi hotspot or borrow someone else's router and see if those work better.

[The Sand]

Thanks for the feedback. The BB's that are having the trouble are Bold 9000's. One router is wireless N and the other is wireless G.

You are correct that diagnosis is hard because it doesn't happen "all" the time. That's why I just can't come up with a solution. I think I have it all figured out and everything is great... then a few days later it will start acting up again. I am thinking maybe RIM is struggling with something with their network. Today I couldn't get Yahoo mail through BIS for most of the late morning. Thankfully we have more than one BB so I can check the other one and KNOW it's something with RIM and not just "my" BB.

Thanks for responding!

Sandy

[monkeypaw]

Is that router really only g? When I Google MBR1000, the only thing that shows up is a Cradlepoint router than is n compatible.