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[boldt]

I have seen numerous posts on the "Wireless Restart" topic and many proposed solutions from:

• Downgrading firmware to 1.11
  Forcing a wireless channel
  Forcing a transmission rate
  Forcing a channel width
  Changing transmit power
  Changing fragmentation thresholds
  disabling WISH
  and removing all wirelss security
  Oh, and then changing the SSID after each change (forcing a new profile on clients)

I have even gone so far to get an RMA on one of these DIR-655 just to have it replaced with one that does the EXACT same thing!

based on the positive reviews on the DIR-655, one of two things is happening:
1) my DLINK luck is bad and I have gotten 2 duds in a row
2) this problem is a lot more widespread and either others are just not noticing it, or are willing to accept the constant wireless restarts

I can honestly say that I am about done with this unit, and quite honestly DLINK all together (their support is borderline abysmal).

However before I give up, and I really don't do this easily, I wanted to inquire one last time if anyone has a working solution AND if DLINK is even admitting there is an issue and planning to do something about it?

I look forward to hearing back from you all!

[Lycan]

If your unit is failing and a replacement is exhibiting the exact same behavior, that tells us that it's not a problem with the product, it's a problem with that SPECIFIC product in your environment.

That being said, have you tried any of the suggestions you listed?
Have you checked the environment for 2.4ghz cordless devices?
Are there many other wireless networks in your house?

[boldt]

Lycan, yes you are correct, there could a another explanation. However as much as I would like to agree with you I have my doubts at this point especially with the apparent number of users out there with similar issues.

To the best of my knowledge there are no other 2.4ghz devices in my home, but do have a 5 GHZ cordless phone in the house. Will netstumbler smell the 2.4 ghz rainbow for interference? I have to admit that its been a long time since I sniffed the air to see whats there. But I will when I return home.

Yes I have tried every single one of those suggestions below to no avail. However I would like to ask what the recommended values should be on those settings?

In fact I recently downgraded to firmware 1.11 and although I do not get the wireless restarts in the log any longer, its far worse now because my clients drop off and now I have to manually reconnect every time.

Since I have seen you posting on many of these wireless restart postings, do you know why DLINK is not putting anything more helpful in the logs as to what may be the root cause of this issue? Is there beta firmware, or even 3rd party, that may be able to help identify the culprit?

Perhaps all these recommended settings and things to try (in a logical sequential order) should be compiled and a "sticky" created? just a thought.

[Lycan]

It would appear that there are a great many people with failing units on these forums, thats because people with working units hardly find forums to brag about how well their device is working.

Along those lines, lets say that there are 100 people on these forums complaining about their units failing, and we sell 10,000 units in a month, thats less then 1% of failing units.
Now, those numbers are drastically under-estimated.

This doesn't mean that we don't care about the people that are suffering from these failings, or that we don't want to help. What it does mean is sometimes there isn't anything that can be done to correct the issue with that model and that a different unit (e.g. rev or different model altogether),  will rectify the situation.

[boldt]

Yes indeed, and agree whole heartedly. I also work in the tech support world and rarely do we ever hear praise, just complaints when things are not working correctly.

With that said, I would like turn my negative experience (so far) into a positive one if possible. I still feel  that assembling a list of things to try, and the order in which to try them in, would be the most logical (and helpful) thing to do.

-Remove all wireless security (do the wireless restarts continue?)
-Use Netstumbler to determine if there is interference by other wireless devices
-Forcing a wireless channel (start at channel 1 and work your way up to 11, until you find a channel that works)
-Forcing a transmission rate (?)
-Forcing a channel width (?)
-Changing transmit power (?)
-Changing fragmentation thresholds (?)
-Disable WISH
-Downgrade to firmware 1.11

Could/would you fill in the gaps above with your suggestions, as well as add additional steps from your experience that should be listed?

I would also invite, and encourage, anyone else that has found a solution to their wireless restart issue to contribute with their solution.

Thank you!

[smlunatick]

Just to also post my experience as this wireless restart. This seems to not limited to the DIR-655 models.  I have a DIR-615 (B2) which does the exact same problem.  Whenever the wireless network is enabled, the router would randomly reboot.  Test all the available firmwares and changed the environment in hopes to clean up the interference that could possibly exist.  I even move the unit to a different building (Kms or miles away from my home.)  Nothing would let the 615 wireless network to work correctly.

However, with the wireless "disabled,"  the router works well as wired Ethernet LAN router.

I am now 'experimenting' with a Dual-band DIR-628.

[aquanaut]

A couple of things I've found in my 'odd ball' environment that may apply to yours as well:

1. Wii (deactiveate 24Connect). This is a problem with Wii, not the router.
2. QOS Engine. Deactivate Automatic Uplink Speed. Set to reasonable speed (e.g., 256kbps)
3. Wireless Setup: Deactivate Auto Channel Scan. Start with channel 11 and work down until disconnects cease to occur. Give each channel a day or two. With a cordless phone, bluetooth wii controllers, bluetooth cell phone, and a microwave oven -- i've had good luck with this set-up.

I've got a road runner cable modem (scientifi atlanta) coming into the DIR655. From that i set our VoIP box with a fixed IP (199) and left the other devices (2 notebooks, a desktop, a server, a PS3, and a Yamaha net radio) to use DHCP.

Our DIR655 is hardware v4.

If this doesn't help you, try the beta firmware v1.22 available at the top of this forum.

Good luck & cheers!

[dblagent]

I have set up a ton of these routers in my job for clients.  Only one time have I ever seen rebooting problems, but boy oh boy was it rebooting!     Anyway, for this client the fix oddly enough was another brand of cable modem.  Strange I know, but the original modem that they had would make the router reboot randomly, once the modem was switched for a new one of another brand it worked perfectly. 

I cannot remember the brand that did not work, but it was replaced by a Motorola and it worked fine.  I would not even think that this was possible if I had not seen it, but it is an example of how hard these problems can be to track down.  I have never had the first issue with my DIR-655 and it is easily the best router I have ever had.  I use and setup tons of different brands and d-link is now my favorite "high end" home router.  I honestly do not care for the low end stuff, but the high end product is great and gives me no problems in my installations.  It still might not be the router for you though, but I hope you can track down your issue.  What you are doing is on the right track, hope you can get it figured out.

[EddieZ]

I have set up a ton of these routers in my job for clients.  Only one time have I ever seen rebooting problems, but boy oh boy was it rebooting!     Anyway, for this client the fix oddly enough was another brand of cable modem.  Strange I know, but the original modem that they had would make the router reboot randomly, once the modem was switched for a new one of another brand it worked perfectly. 

I cannot remember the brand that did not work, but it was replaced by a Motorola and it worked fine.  I would not even think that this was possible if I had not seen it, but it is an example of how hard these problems can be to track down.  I have never had the first issue with my DIR-655 and it is easily the best router I have ever had.  I use and setup tons of different brands and d-link is now my favorite "high end" home router.  I honestly do not care for the low end stuff, but the high end product is great and gives me no problems in my installations.  It still might not be the router for you though, but I hope you can track down your issue.  What you are doing is on the right track, hope you can get it figured out.

Nobody believes me at first, but there a quite some cable modems causing issue with routers. I've seen more errors caused by modems and the client PC's than specific router issues.   

[shaith]

Things to do:

Setup is done with a wired connection.  Just trust me on this.  Besides, when you wipe your old config, the wireless will shut down - so get the router next to your box with a network jack on it (they all do these days) and plug it in.

1) Upgrade to the current RELEASE firmware.  Avoid betas, etc.  Let's get you on a known commodity.  1.21 was the current version when I wrote this.
2) HARD reset the router.  See the manual or support pages for the procedure.  Afterwards, DO NOT import your old configuration - build a new one.
3) Set ONLY the features you need to have on. 
4) Wireless settings:

Enable it, Always, and name it first.  Don't leave it dlink, and don't name it after your last name, address, etc - nothing to personally identify YOU from IT.  Name it something meaningful to you but impossible to associate.  Now, set the rest of your stuff:

     a)802.11 mode - mixed
     b)Auto channel scan - OFF
     c)Wireless channel - This will take some research on your part.  6 is the midpoint and typically the "sweet spot" in the band.  It's also where every bloody router starts looking.  What I did is turn the router OFF, then use my CLIENT machines to look to see what networks were out there.  I didn't bother using netstumbler - I used the Dlink configuration utility (turning off windows management of the wireless to do so), and scanned the world a few times.  In my case, 6 turned out to be open.  Yours it might not.  Avoid using the extreme ends of the band (channels 1 and 11).  Channels 5-8 typically seem to work the best and avoid interference, but YMMV.
     d)Transmit rate - Auto (Best)
     e)Channel width - 20 MHz.  Yes, I realize this is going to slow some of you down.  But especially in a mixed-adapter environment where not all of your adapters are Dlink (laptop built-in cards aren't), I've found greater stability by dropping that width down.  Working connection > fast but dropping one.  Besides, how many of you actually have a connection capable of sustaining 300 Mbps on the internet? 
     f)Visibility status - While you're setting up, leave it visible.  Once you're done?  Turn it off for security purposes.

Security mode - None is a bad idea.  Very bad.  WEP is about 1 footstep above None.  Don't use these if you can avoid it, but WEP is STILL better than None if your old card that you refuse to upgrade doesn't support WPA.

The option for you is WPA Personal.  If you're in an enterprise environment and have a working Radius authentication server, chances are pretty high you aren't using this product in your network anyway.

WPA mode - Auto
Cipher - TKIP/AES
Update interval - 3600s

PSK (Pre-shared key) - set as desired.  It's a password - make it something easy to remember, hard to guess, not found in the dictionary, and avoid anything that a hacker can socially engineer by digging through your garbage cans.



The setup for the rest of your pages - leave at STOCK values for now.  Don't set up virtuals, etc - leave them alone.  Save your configuration.  Make sure you've set a password for the admin account.  Now, unplug the router, unplug your cable modem/DSL modem/etc.  Wait 30s to 1m.  Plug in the modem, let it finish sync'ing.  Now plug in the router.

I found that the best wireless performance came from having the router set up vertically with the antennas pointing up, straight out, and down (from top-bottom) - but your environment may differ and your coverage pattern certainly does, so adjust those as needed to maximize your own performance.

Once the ROUTER is done and online, unplug the WIRED connection, and set up the WIRELESS on the CLIENT end using the information you specified on the router. 

Once you set up your clients, restart EVERYTHING.  Powercycle the router, then turn all of your clients on and make sure they ALL connect.  Now, for the hard part:  Go look for the end of the internet.  See if you can find it.  And if you have any resets, go into the logs and copy everything you see from the router log and post it up - the answer might be there.

[boldt]

Shaith, nicely done! I am sure that this will be of immense value to others looking for a place to start troubleshooting these errors.

I can tell you that I have followed your advice to a "T", and unfortunately my wireless restarts remain.

Update on my wireless restarts:
-I updated to BETA 1.22 and its no better
-I happen to have a WII, and I have a wired adapter for it, and thought that aquanut was onto something with the WIICONNECT24, I never turned it off! well I did and the problem remains.

Unfortunately netstumbler did not work with my wireless adapter so I am hunting for a laptop/wireless card that is compatible so I can sniff the air for some interference.

[bluenote]

I would go to beta 1.22b05 (big difference over the other betas in my experience),
and then I would  begin disabling everything on the router bit by bit until it stopped restarting/rebooting.

Im not a big wireless user but it seems to me from what I've read here certain A models of this router have more problems with this than others ... what were yours or did I miss that?

When I say disable things I don't just mean wireless.  I mean everything.  Because the exercise is to find out if the router can be stable in SOME kind of configuration.  So that includes such things as DNS proxying/forwarding , QOS, SPI, automatic time setting, etcetera.

And then make your wireless config as simple as possibe .. disable WISH, WMM, etcera.

If you are absolutely ruthless and thorough you'll at least have a better idea if it can be fixed via configuration.  Once you know that, if both hardware versions were the same maybe you can get a different version.

Cory

Eddie:  If a router reboots/disconnects "because of" the modem/PC/etc that is the routers fault not the other device.  I'll agree however with the general principle that ... problems can be misdiagnosed as being with the router in lots of cases.

[boldt]

I am running A3 with 1.22 (b05)
* unfortunately I never noted the hardware version of the first one that I had RMA'd

bluenote - I am being as thorough (absolutely ruthless :-))as I possibly can here. Not only that but I am trying to keep track of what exactly I am doing so that other's might benefit from my ruthlessness.


A side note, and one that I probably neglected before, was that I am simply using the DIR-655 as an AP and a GB switch.  This decreases the complexity of the config quite a bit.

Updated:
I just went back and looked at some other threads on this wireless restart subject and noted this post from EddieZ:

Get the 1.22 beta firmware. If the issue persists we can solve it, but 1.21 is too unstable to put in a lot of effort.

EddieZ - as indicated I am now running 1.22 and still have the issue. What did you mean by we can solve it? is there something I am missing in the logs perhaps that is providing some additional insight to these restarts?

[EddieZ]

Try this: Use DHCP reservation (static IP for LAN clients). Seems to work with some of these restart issues

[boldt]

I have the DHCP turned off on the DLINK. I actually run Windows SBS and use it for most network services.

I truly just have it configured as an AP with a GB switch.