All wireless connections are being dropped periodically (DD-WRT & Tomato)

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dmlogs
dmlogs's picture
All wireless connections are being dropped periodically (DD-WRT & Tomato)

I purchased the WNR3500L a few months ago and flashed it to Tomato. I set it up at my college apartment and it was working fine for the few weeks I was there early in the summer. I just returned and it is now having issues.

Ethernet connections and the Internet WAN itself are not causing issues. The problem is after connecting over wireless for anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 hours all wireless connections will be dropped. Trying to reconnect will result in time out errors and the router will disappear from available networks. It is incredibly unpredictable, and incredibly frustrating.

I flashed the firmware to DD-WRT (v24-K26) earlier today to see if the issue was Tomato. This did not resolve the issue (hence the post).

The clients I have tried include a mac, an hp netbook with Ubuntu and a Dell Latitude with XP.

Does this sound like a hardware issue not a firmware issue? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Sudipta
Sudipta's picture
Have you flashed with

Have you flashed with original firmware ? Flush out your device with original firmware and let me know if the issue remains same.

dmlogs
dmlogs's picture
I have flashed to the

I have flashed to the original firmware; I will test it out today and report back

dmlogs
dmlogs's picture
Yesterday after I flashed to

Yesterday after I flashed to the original firmware it worked fine the remainder of the day and was not dropping connections. This morning I woke up and the wireless remained stable for about an hour.

It is now having the same issue as before with both Tomato and DD-WRT.

Sudipta
Sudipta's picture
Does it work properly after

Does it work properly after rebooting? How much time it remains stable after reboot?

gnuguy
gnuguy's picture
as per another thread here

as per another thread here try setting the dns addresses instead of them being assigned by your isp copy the isp dns listings from the status -> wan tab in dd-wrt (in my case 2 addresses for comcast). put them as static dns servers on the setup tab. No idea why it works but it has kept mine going for 2 days now. Also my router finally works with my iphone which it never did before.

Kong
Kong's picture
While you had tomato and dd

While you had tomato and dd-wrt on it did you raise the tx power?
If tx power is too high the radio unit can be burned, especially if you transfer lots of data over air.

If all firmwares now show the same behaviour it is likely that the radio unit is broken.

dmlogs
dmlogs's picture
Last 2 days have been stable

Last 2 days have been stable so I dont think I will mess with the dns while it is working. I left tx power at default levels with both tomato and dd-wrt -- so unless it was too high by default this should not be the problem.

Kong
Kong's picture
DD-WRTs default for the wnr

DD-WRTs default for the wnr is too high lots of people have problems with the default of 71mW, I'll change the default power in my next release.