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View Full Version : WLAN on 5455 suddenly not working...


MultiMatt
03-17-2003, 08:25 AM
Doesn't it figure - I'm on the road, and suddenly my WLAN is acting up on my 5455!
When I go to turn on the WLAN, the signal indicator is immediately on 100%, yet there's really no connection. I go to Status, and it is hanging on Initializing...
Sometimes it will change from that and say "The WLAN is off"...

I installed the recent WLAN update from HP, and at home it seemed to work just fine.
I've soft-reset a few times, to no avail...

Any thoughts or suggestions? I'm typing this on my iPAQ via serial connection on my mobile phone!

Help!
Thanks,
Matt

jimski
03-17-2003, 08:46 AM
This has happened to me a few times (prior to the new update) and it was resolved after a couple soft resets along with a few other things.

I have not zeroed in on the cause yet but do recall that I had to make sure that WiFi was turned off prior to the reset and on at least one occasion editing my profile (just walk through without making any changes) seemed to work.

Still don't know exactly why this happens. I use a WiFi network at home and at work.

pjerry220
03-17-2003, 11:11 AM
I have experienced the same problem. I use WiFi at home and work with my HP Ipaq 5455. I never have a problem at work but at home I always have to wrestle with the wireless. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I have a Linksys gateway router.

I am not sure if that is the problem but I am going to try to upgrade the firmware on the linksys. If someone figures this out I sure would like to know about the solution.

mjhamson
03-17-2003, 02:34 PM
"Mac" gave me a good quick fix to when this problem come about, you just take the battery out and wait a few seconds... put it back in and your ready to go.

The soft resets do not always work for me, and this is the only solution that I have found to work all of the time. I just wish HP would fix the cause of the problem.

piperpilot
03-17-2003, 03:45 PM
This has happened to me a couple of times and I found that closing down the WLAN (tapping "Set Power Off" and then tapping "Close" on the drop down menu), then doing a soft reset takes care of the problem. I have installed the update and had this problem occur, so I don't think the update addresses that particular issue. Good luck!

FredMurphy
03-17-2003, 04:28 PM
Damn! I'd hoped that the HP update was to solve this problem. :x

There are a few threads here and on other PPC sites about this. Taking the battery out usually sorts this but I have had to do a backup, hard reset, restore and then recreate the WLAN profile before to get this working. :(

This fix is well overdue!

Chris Spera
03-17-2003, 08:09 PM
This issue is related to one or two issues:

1. Dirty Power (A Particle of Pre-Animate Matter Caught in the Matrix...)
While Mr. Chekov was totally wrong about Ceti Alpha 5, this issue has ticked me off to no end. To resolve this issue, you'll need to do 1 or both of these things:
a) Turn off USB Charging (if you have it on) Dirty power from under powered USB 1.1 ports has wreaked havoc with USB Charging on the 5400.
b) Pull the Battery Some times, a soft reset is not enough, and you have to pull the power and let the system, uh-hem... "reset" itself via a lack of direct battery power. As long as you put the battery back in, after a slow count of 15, then your backup battery won't crap out on you, causing a hard reset.

2. Low Memory/ Resources
I've noticed that if your free program memory runs below 12MB or so, you're not going to be able to run a lot of things at the same time. For example, I CANNOT run Calligrapher, WLAN and Sync at the same time if I have less than 12MB of free program RAM.

In order to ensure that you have enough free RESOURCES to run the things that you want, you should REMOVE the following short cuts from your \Windows\Startup folder:
1. DM_k.lnk: Unless you have any Expansion Sleeves, you won't need this program running. It is the utility that activates the Expansion Sleeve connector on your iPAQ. I put this directly on my Start Menu, and only activate it when I want to use my PC Card Sleeve or my NavMan GPS Sleeve.

2. BTTrayCE.lnk: This is the BlueTooth Manager Tray Utility that runs when you soft reset your machine. Unless you use BlueTooth EVERY DAY, I would pull this utility from your Startup folder and stick it in your iPAQ Wireless folder, and again, only run it when you need BT.

You will notice a HUGE performance increase after doing this. I would also move the iPAQ WAN.lnk file to your Start Menu. This way, you have quick access to turn your Wi-Fi adapter on when you need it.

With all of these shortcuts moved around, if you bump into problems with your Wi-Fi adapter not working, just soft reset your device, and your Wi-Fi adapter (which was turned on before you soft reset) should find your network and you should be ready to rock.

Hope all this helped!


Kind Regards,


Christopher Spera

GSibble
03-17-2003, 10:48 PM
I just had the same problem today. I did not ever have this problem before I installed the update. I get the feeling that it might have something to do it, maybe increasing the IPaq's chances that it will have a problem. Who knows? In any case, removing the battery worked perfectly. I was worried there for a minute because no matter how many times I turned it on, soft reset, etc., it would not work, and I use the WLan everyday! Oh well, its working now. Thanks guys!

-George

Chris Spera
03-18-2003, 01:57 AM
In my experience there is NOTHING wrong with the driver update. This is truly a power, memory or resource issue.

Since the update, I've not had one problem with the performance of the WLAN adapter in my 5455. The performance has only increased.

HP just needs to do a better job of programming and needs to clean up the code on the WLAN driver, the BlueTooth driver, and the Expansion Sleeve driver.

Christopher Spera

ChristopherTD
03-18-2003, 10:08 AM
Chris

Thanks for the tip about dirty power. I did have USB charging turned on and it may be that my Thinkpad A21p does not power the USB bus fully. I shall avoid using my Boxwave MiniSync cable for a few days and see if that helps. Is there any way to measure/test the USB charging to see if it safe?

The performance tips from removing DM_K and BlueTooth monitor are great as well.


Thanks
Christopher