Stream 7 wifi drops

[rickyli99]

Anyone else observing, slow wifi and rampant wifi "limited connectivity" with your stream 7? I thought it was my home network which is (by no choice of my own) an apple extreme based network. However when I dropped in at a client's location (who uses Cisco gear not linksys) and was having the same issues. I've also started to doubt that my last two trips to the neighborhood starbucks where I couldn't get a consistent connection was the fault of their network.

I'm on the cusp of returning the S7, it's a great concept but I think v1 (charging issues, headphone buzzing, etc) is making me think waiting for the v2 is not a 1/2 bad idea.

P.S. if banhien sees this and decides to post one of his useless "i used google to google this answer, but I have no real experience with the hardware" answers, please move on. I rather have real input/feedback from other users. kthnxbai

[rickyli99]

FWIW I've used a USB 802.11n dongle on an USB OTG cable to test. It doesn't seem to have as many drops, but since it's so bothersome to have it attached and try to use the tablet normally I haven't throughly tested it. I might give it a longer whirl this weekend, if I decide to skip some yard work lol.

[drbug]

Hi ricckyli99:

Same here.  

Hope they will correct.

dr bug

[jeffmdaemon]

if your wifi drops even when on a dongle, it isn't your tablet. get a better router.

[rickyli99]

drbug, if you're daring enough, here's something to try. I uninstalled the cisco (LEAP, PEAP and EAP) programs under add/remove programs and it seems to have helped the situation. I found an event log entry saying those apps couldn't bind to my USB wifi dongle, but did bind to my built in wifi card. Out of sheer frustration I uninstalled them to see what would happen, reasoning if it went fubar I would just refresh/reinstall my s7.

Of course, I'm right on the edge of returning the thing so if I did muck up the software by removing the wrong thing I wasn't too worried either. lol

Figured I should throw in a disclaimer; I know some wifi installations require those software, to authenticate the client to the wifi network, but for the places I work at, we don't use them. So I had no qualms with uninstalling them, however uninstall at your own risk. If you hose your system, your only option maybe to restore from back up.

[rickyli99]

@jeffmdaemon Thanks for the reply, but for clarity WiFi didn't drop when I use the USB dongle. I used the wording "doesn't seem to have as many drops" because I wasn't really testing for stability, and it was more anecdotal evidence than anything else. I was in the process of testing to see if OTG worked with USB wired ethernet adapters, if it could handle dual wifi adapters and some other network related (4G/LTE modems etc) devices. So stability wasn't what I was watching for, thus far, I had the USB wifi dongle plugged for all of 10-15 minutes while I was testing for other stuff with multiple reboots. 

I have tested this device on multiple networks and have observed the same issue, even wifi tethered to my phone it drops (although that could also be cell network related), so I'm hard pressed to point to it being a single router issue. What my "futher testing" would involve, is to do a complete charge/battery drain cycle on USB wifi only and see if there will be as many drops (if at all) compared to the built in wifi adapter. One thing I have noticed, when using USB network adapters (wifi or ethernet) the tablet doesn't go to sleep as easily, so battery drain will be an issue.

I'll report back on Monday if I see anything significant. Also, for completeness, in another reply I mentioned that after I uninstalled the cisco software that is included with the standard install image, my drops seems to have changed but I haven't fully tested that either.

[jeffmdaemon]

Well ive been using it with my netgear as well as my works public wifi with no issues. 

[rickyli99]

Good to know. Thanks!

[drbug]

Hello again rickyli99:

Thanks for the suggestion - did not frighten me being as a longtime hobbyist.

However, I actually ran the HP diagnosic utility and let it perform some network checks. It did a few things including resetting the WiFi adapter.

Although I did not see any drop outs after that point, I did not have it running for a long time afterward to confirm that that issue is fully resolved.

In the meantime, charging the device to full charge (99% showing) and then putting it to sleep yesterday, when I woke it about 22 hours later, it had run down to only 20% charge! I will try doing a few discharge, recharge cycles to see if the problem resolves itself and check for anything that is running in the background (not using bluetooth yet) that could be drawning the charge down while in sleep mode.

Cheers,

dr bug

[jeffmdaemon]

With all wireless off..I was loosing about %4 every 6 hours. Having the wifi kills that even more. I am not thrilled with the battery life but with the fast boot mode, I have simply been shutting down the tablet when ever i don't use it. That said, After being off the charger since last night (again, shut down) and about an hour of use at work today, its sitting at %52. 

I just gotta keep reminding myself that I only paid $79 for it. 😉