I've had a WiFi "network" for quite some time that's consisted of an access point and my laptop. Everything's worked just fine with it. Recently, I got the Bluetooth/Airport upgrade for my Mac Mini. (Which, by the way, other than the problem I'm having, seems to be a pretty good deal; $99 installed, the same price as if you'd ordered the Mini with the option in the first place.

Ever since I got the Mini on the network, my laptop's connection has been flaky. Sometimes it works fine, but sometimes, usually under a network load, like transferring files multiple ways, the laptop will just kind of peter out and stop talking to any other computers; I can't even ping known IP addresses on the same network. When I look at the connection status, I see that it's got a good signal, usually 3-5 bars out of 5, but the speed is marked as being 1Mbps whereas it'll usually hover around 24Mbps in the areas I usually use it, or 54Mbps if I get close to the AP. But I'm not even getting 1Mbps out of it, apparently.

Nothing seems to solve the problem other than disconnecting from the wireless network and then reconnecting, at which point it'll start working as it always did before the Mini's wireless connection showed up. I always forget to check to see how the Mini's connection is during these outages, but it's always back up when I get the laptop back up.

The laptop is a Sony Vaio PCG-Z1WA with it's built-in Centrino 2200BG wireless adapter running Windows XP Home, which I think is getting to the point of needing to be reinstalled anyway. But, as I said, it was fine until the Mini. The Mini is, at least for the moment, physically much closer to the AP than the laptop usually is.

So, is the Mini crippling the network somehow, or is the laptop getting confused by something that the Mini is doing that it shouldn't be confused by, or is there something I can tweak maybe with the WiFi channel? Maybe a WiFi power level on the Mini? I don't really know where to start looking at this point.

Download KisMac on the Mac Mini, or if it is running Tiger, the Air Traffic Control widget. See what channels your neighbors are running on and see if changing helps.

My friend recently moved into an area with lots of wireless neighbors. His connection worked ok until he had me and another friend over with our laptops. Same symptoms as you described, wireless dropped down from 54 to 11, then lower until we got disconnected. Rebooting the access point (A Belkin one, he and I don't trust Linksys) fixed it for a short time, then it happened again. He changed the channel and enabled SSID broadcast, and things worked great after that.

Keep in mind the only non overlapping channels in the US are 1, 6, and 11. Try to go with an unused channel on one of thise. If not possible, experiment with the others, but keep in mind they will pick up inteference from channels near them.

I'm too lazy to look it up myself, so how do channels work within one WiFi network? Do they all share the same channel or do they use explicitly different ones or do they use random ones? I don't see any way to change the channel on the Windows machine. Is it set via the AP somehow?

It's set per access point, on the access point. You should see it if you log into the web interface.

Matthew

That's kinda what I figured, but wasn't sure, and didn't feel like wading through pages of documents to find out. Thanks.

Heh.

I see something similar here from time to time. Silvy (my new Dell i9300) has the Intel "A+B+G" wifi chip built-in. I have two access points here, an older Belkin "B" that works flawlessly, and a new D-Link "B+G" device that I'm experimenting with. Silvy and the Belkin get along famously, with zero issues.

But Silvy and the new D-Link have symptoms similar to Bitts: all works well for a while, and then stops, and I have to reset the connection (either the AP or the Dell) to get it working again. Dunno why.

And, no, I don't ever have both APs powered on at the same time. And there are no other users of this wifi network, and no other wifi networks within range.

Cheers

One thing you both might also want to try would be to set the access point into a G only mode, assuming no B clients. Mark, since you have a working B router, you could set that to B only (if it has such a choice) to allow any other B equipment to keep using it. Since if a B device talks to a G access point, things slow down for everyone.

The Mini only saw one other network, at channel 6, while I was at channel 11. But it didn't always see that network, so I wonder if the other person turns their AP on (why isn't it on all the time?), it tries channel 11, sees I'm using it, then goes to channel 6, but when it tries channel 11 it screws me up. If that's the case, maybe I can set mine to channel 1 and hope that it doesn't try there before either of those (11 does seem to be the default).

I'll also try the G-only thing, too. I'm not actively using my B clients.