D-Link Forums
The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => Network and WIreless Adapters => DWA-160 => Topic started by: templar817 on April 30, 2014, 06:17:25 AM
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Hi all, I bought a new DWA-160 about a month ago and I use my PC pretty much everyday for a few hours. Yesterday was my first encounter where midway through surfing the net I lost my internet connection and I noticed the light was solid and not blinking. I rebooted my PC once and I notice my PC "beeps" during boot up as though something was blocking the boot up. Upon removing the adapter, the boot continues, and I noticed the adapter got extremely hot. After plugging in and removing the adapter a few times managed to get it working again without rebooting again. Same thing happened again today.
My adapter is within direct line of sight of the wireless router. I'm running Win7 x64 and the driver installed was the auto-installed driver (and using windows update now it says the driver is up to date). Feels like I got a bad adapter, should I request a replacement?
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Link>Welcome! (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=48135.0)
- What Hardware version is your router? Look at sticker under router.
- Link>What Firmware (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=47512.0) version is currently loaded? Found on the routers web page under status.
- What region are you located?
It's commended to use the driver on D-Link main web site for the lastest OEM drivers.
What Mfr and model is the main host router?
What is the distance between the adapter and the main host router?
Wireless Configurations on the main host router
Links>Wireless Installation Considerations (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=48327.0) and Managing Signal Congestion (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=53228.0) and Good Neighbour Policy (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=10634.0)
- Ensure the default (dlink) SSID name is changed. Can be anything and not something that's already in use by any neighboring WiFi routers.
- What wireless modes are you using?
- 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz routers: Try single mode G or N or mixed G and N on 2.4Ghz and single mode N or AC on 5Ghz?
- Channel Width set for Auto 20/40Mhz or try 20Mhz only.
- Try setting a manual Channel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_channel) to a open or unused channel. 1, 6 or 11. 11 for single mode N if the channel is clear. 13 for EU regions.
- What security mode are you using? Preferred security is WPA-Personal. WPA2/AES Only. Some WiFi adapters don't support AES (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard), so you might want to try TPIK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_Key_Integrity_Protocol) only or Auto TPIK and AES.
- What wireless devices do you have connected?
- Any 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz cordless house phones or WiFi APs near by?
- Any other WiFi routers in the area? Link> Use InSSIDer (http://www.metageek.net/support/metageek-software-archives/) to find out. How many?
Router Placement
Forum User - "Well I feel really dumb. After moving the router away from other electronic devices my speeds are back to normal. Just a heads up for anyone experiencing slow speeds, you might want to move it away from other electronics and see if that helps."
3-6' feet minimum safe distance between devices.
Placement on main level floor and central in the building is preferred. Not in basements as building materials could interfere or hinder good signal propagation.
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Hi, thank you for the reply. I noticed all your questions are regarding the router - the router is an ASUS dual band router that was provided by my optic cable company. Issues I seem to be having is regarding the DWA-160 USB wireless adapter, and things e.g. the adapter seemingly blocking my PC boot up seems to indicate some issue with the adapter or the network card.
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The adapter is dependent upon a good connection from the main host router, thus the reason of asking you what you have and presenting you with some suggestions and questions about the main host router.
Also you can ensure that your USB drivers for your PC are up to date if there are any. You'll need to check with the PCs Mfr site for this.
Please give feedback for the questions presented so we can get a better idea if your configuration so we can give you better feedback to help you narrow this down.
I have two of these adapters and they work well for me. However my main host router are D-Link routers.