HP Mini 2140 wireless connection problems

[feral]

Ok bit of an update.  Problem not fixed.  It was temporary.  The wifi has returned to its old ways. For a short period of time it all seemed and was well.

ping -t shows high latency and packet loss, BUT can help maintain a connection..

Additionally, one of the other two HP2140's is having identical problems, so they are both going back...

The third we shall stress test...

Sorry to get everyones hopes up. Its very frustrating.

[feral]

Further updates.

http://www.dlink.com.au/Default.aspx?Sec=1&Sub1=2

Working flawlessly connected to a DIR-300 connected @54 with WEP (using default settings) in the office using broadcom utility.

But not a DIR-635 @ home with WPA (or anything else for that matter) (using default settings)  or a nb6plus4w 

Maybe its environment related, some strange interference.

[k1w1]

Ok, pretty much the same issue here. New 2140 arrived yesterday with XP Pro SP2 downgrade installed. I started it up, applied XPSP3 to it via the ethernet port, then later tried the wireless, initially wouldnt get an ip address, I restarted the machine it would connect after that, but have major packet loss and very high latency connected to either my WAP54G or my HP ProCurve 530. My other machines hp 6715b and nc6000 and I-mate all connecting and working perfectly to either AP. Sometime a page would come up other times not, then the connection would just disconnect and reconnect at random.

Initially tried to uninstall SP3 which left IE broken, so formatted and reloaded XP from the HP CD's via USB CD, then loaded all the drivers form the driver cd. Still not connecting , connecting but not working as before. So thankfully didnt appear to be related to SP3.

Have since tried yet another access point and old 54g 3com ethernet router (3COM 3CRWE554G72) and its seems to be working at least but still a little slow. I can only think that there must be some major chipset or driver incompatibility going on between the 4322AG and Broadcom chip (BCM5352 chip rev 0) in the WAP54G and the Atheros chips in the Pro Curve. The 3com of the other hand has an odd chipset (Intersil ISL3893) so seems strange that the 2140 will only work with that.

Anyway I've lodged a support call with HP which may or may not be waste of time, they'll probaby replace the WLAN card and if that doesn't work it'll have to go back.

Im surprised that HP could even ship this, especially seeing as it doesnt work with their own AP! but unfortunately whoever they have making their notebooks at the moment mustn't be very good at it as its almost becoming the norm to have something not work on a HP nowadays.

Im pretty disappointed as this machine appeared to have excellent build quality and the performance, size, weight and screen were all excellent. Its crazy that its let down by something so simple as wireless connectivity.

[feral]

Another update, this time from the 2140 over wifi with zero packet loss, almost zero latency, woohoooo.. I've been intent on solving this or at least finding some sort of common denominator so stick this up ya you broadcom piece of the proverbial.

So for me WEP fixed at 54 seems to be the key. And more specifically Channel 2,    2.417 GHz- I think this is why they were all working great at the office and nowhere else.  Bit of a pain in the neck really if you have zero control of the access point you are trying to connect to. The AP in the office always seemed to choose 2.

I've set the router to do mixed mode g & b. It seems that n was just way too hard and possibly causing some of the issues.  It may also be prudent to note that I switched off the front wifi on/off switch in bios, although that may not be related.

Interested to know how others get on..

[DBrain]

HP finally (!) agreed to send me a new 2140 to replace the one that had cost me and them a lot of time and money sending back and forth to try to correct the connection problems.  None of the measures ever worked (new OS install, flashing, various drivers, new wireless card, etc.)

The new unit works, and I have it on 30 days approval.

HOWEVER, even though it will make and maintain wireless connections, it is much slower than it should be.

I could update the wireless drivers to the ones listed on the hp site, but I am afraid that the unit will not work then.

Has anyone else checked the connection speed using speedtest.fsr.net or on the McAfee Spedometer?

My connection with the 2140 is about 3 to 4 times slower than the speed of the connection using my old hp laptop that has a Broadcom card and a slower CPU than does the 2140 !

This was true on several different networks (various routers), encrypted or not.

Could some of you test your (functioning) 2140's using the speedtest.fsr.net web address and then post the results?

My results on speedtest.fsr.net:

2140        = about a 2500 average (download speed)

my old hp laptop with a broadcom g card and a 1.2 gigherz cpu = 10,000 or more   

using speedtest.fsr

What is a program to test for dropped packets, etc?

[k1w1]

A simple test for packet loss is using ping from the command prompt. Ping an address locally, like your AP or gateway

ping -n 50 <IP ADDRESS>

This will ping your host 50 times, and report latency and packet loss if any

You should get a result like this

Ping statistics for <IP ADDRESS>:
    Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 50, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 21ms, Maximum = 29ms, Average = 25ms

Another really useful utility is pathping, this is a combination or tracert and ping and will report latency and packet loss over each hop. Try a pathping to your ISP's DNS server

pathping -q 50 <ISP DNS SERVER ADDRESS>

The result take a little while to process but will give you a detailed report on each hop.

Message Edited by k1w1 on 06-26-2009 01:05 PM

[Roninson]

Thanks for investigating this, guys. I had to leave town this week and havent had a chance to look into it further. More frustrating is that I took the 2140 with me on the road and had the same problem with every secured AP I tried to use - either it connects and eventually slows down and drops, or it doesn't connect at all. I'm going to try changing some of the router settings tonight to see if that helps. 

As a side note, I've been in an email exchange with HP since last week, and the responses are exactly as anticipcated - maddening. The forums with people of experience and understanding prove much more helpful (even if there isnt a solution - there's a least an understanding of the specifics and how frustrating this all is).

[stphnc]

had 3 laptops wireless just quit.....the one vista machine might connect every once and a while but only if it was 10 feet from the router...not the cable modem or router...turned out to be HP wireless assisstant....worked when we got the laptop then it just stopped.....HP had done an update on the vista laptop. ....which screwed up all laptops in the house. unchecked HP assisstant in start up with msconfig and they all started working

[Roninson]

I havent fully tested this, but I've located a newer Broadcom driver than the one in SP42488.exe. Ironically, its on HP's site itself, though how someone would actually find it is a bit of a mystery.

Anyway, here's the latest by HP - SP43742.exe - the latest Broadcom driver:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?swItem=ob-71351-1〈=en&cc=us...

I installed it by uninstalling the 42488 Broadcom driver and then specifically browsed to the directory C\SWSetup\sp43742 - which contains the latest driver once you run the exe. Note: the site itself dates this driver as May 14th, 2009, but once the driver is installed it will state that its from April 15th (listed as 4/15/2009). More important, look for the version number - 5.10.91.8 - once it's installed to confirm you're using this latest one.

Again, I havent fully tested it, but so far this evening, the connection has remained somewhat stable and was even able to stream a full episode of Family Guy from Hulu.com (albeit with a few pauses).

It might not be THE fix for myself and others in this thread with the same problem, but so far I'm having more success than everything else I tried (or that HP support has suggested).

Hope this helps others...

Message Edited by Roninson on 07-04-2009 09:03 PM

[mistr47]

@Roninson

Thanx man!

it really worked.

Bought a new 2140 today and had similar issues (not connecting to secured network) (broadcom Driver oct-nov 2008)

After updating the driver .... its working (no disconnections yet)