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[emartinez]

Hi,

Over the last week I've been having some issues.
I have 3 wired connections and a few wireless clients.
All the wireless clients work fine all the time. The wired connections are the ones having problems. I started getting a lot of random connection errors. I do not get the "Cable is not connected error" but I keep getting an error that says "Destination unreachable" and also "Request timed out" when I ping the router.

One thing that I noticed is that if I have my connection idle, only with an endless ping to the router, I do not see any problems. It is when I try to access anything (including the router's admin pages) that the connection drops for a few seconds and then comes back online later.

Is this a common problem?
I've been using the router for at least 9 months and never had a problem.
I've checked the wires with a tester and even replaced a few with new ones. No change.
I tried looking at the logs but they have nothing that can be related to this problem. No error messages, no warnings, no link up/link down (IMO link up/down should be logged whenever the status changes for a wired port or a wireless client).
Are there any hidden logs or status pages I can check?


Something that may or may not not be related to this problem I'm having... (please tell me or split the post if this needs its own thread)
If I keep a ping on the router from a wireless client (N, with about 45% signal str), most responses take anywhere from 2 to 4ms but periodically one of them takes over one full second. I have not timed it but I think it was around 1 slow response every 20 seconds or 30 seconds. Very consistent.
Is this normal or do I have a problem with the router or my wireless adapter on my desktop?
I can check with multiple clients at the same time to see if they all lag at the same time but I want to skip the testing if this is normal or expected behavior.

Thanks!

[FurryNutz]

What HW and firmware version are you using? I'm using A1 and FW verion 1.21 B08. Lan is doing great so far. Wireless is still not as stable as I'd like it.

[emartinez]

Firmware is 1.15 HW A1

The thing is that the router has been pretty solid for months (no need to reboot since it was configured months back) and went wrong last week with this strange behavior. I think it is a HW fault and I'm looking for assistance to determine if it really is HW related or not.

The wired connection fails constantly so I've switched my main desktop computer to use a wireless connection to the router.

[FurryNutz]

Try a different LAN cable by chance? Try a different LAN card in the PC in question? How is your LAN networking setup. I presume all DHCP? I have mine setup for reserved IP addressing for all my PC's including wireless.

[suzumebachi]

I have this exact same problem and was going to post a new message.


Wired connections have a problem.  It appears that HTTP/HTTPS is either blocked or ignored.
Browser traffic connects, but stalls on affected wired clients.

* Ping/Tracert/nslookup/messenger services that don't use HTTP/S continue to work which means that cable and connectivity are not an issue.  Ping and tracert pass through without packet loss, nslookup responds within milliseconds. 
* There is nothing in the system log about a down network connection.
* DHCP lease is reserved and does not expire.  Release/renew doesn't help
* Reboot of the router and the workstation does not resolve the problem
* Access cannot be gained to the router management page because it is http
* Client works fine on another router

[FurryNutz]

Have you done a factory reset of the router and used default settings to check the connectivity with out changing anything? Connect up one PC to the router wired with out any other PCs online. Run some tests and check what your needing. For Wireless, I would try G mode only at 2.4Ghz and check connectivity. If your trying to use N mode only on 5Ghz and inside a building with walls and doors, 2.4Ghz will be a better band to use. 5Ghz needs more directly line of site to get good signal with out degradation of data packets and errors. If it doesn't seem to work, I would suggest you make contact with CS and see if there is anything that can be done.

[suzumebachi]

I'll try the factory reset.  However configuration will need to be done at some point because having a wireless router broadcasting in the clear for everyone is not a good idea.

One point to note: The wireless is working fine.  It is a wired (cable connected) desktop where I'm having a problem

[FurryNutz]

Understand on the wireless. Let us know about the wired. IF there's a problem with the wired after the reset. Might have to call DLink and ask. Might turn off Firewall and check ur DNS relay settings, some people it works some it works with it shut off. Also check Dynamic DNS Service. It's off on mine.

[emartinez]

I'm still having this problem even after a factory reset and complete configuration.

If I keep a constant ping from my wired computer to the router I get randomly dropped packets (even over 50%). Nothing loads correctly even if it is only the admin pages of the router. The bad part is when this is happening all wireless clients also experience dropouts and disconnections. Basically the router is rendered useless. If I remove the cable and check the logs with a wireless client, there's no log of any errors at all.

I have 2 more wired computers those don't have problems unless I connect the third one.
The 2 computers that have no problem only run at 100.0Mbps, the one that starts all the problems has a gigabit network port. The first two wired computers are really close to the router (not even 4 meters away). The other computer is a bit away on a different floor and is using a 25m cable.

I cannot replace the 25m cable easily (or just drop in a new one) as it is routed through concrete walls and the holes are made to the size of exactly 1 cable (not even the jacks fit). I doubt the cable is bad but I won't discard the possibility before testing it with a network tester along with side to side big file transfers. If this cable went bad...
Could that cable (or a bad cable) destroy all other connections (wireless and wired) without the router even writing anything to the logs?

Are there known problems with long cables (I think max allowed is 100m for ethernet so I'm quite within normal and acceptable distance) and this router model?

[FurryNutz]

I wonder if you would have the same problem with the Gb PC if you manually set the NIC up for 100Mb connection instead of auto. There could be an issue with that NIC not properly auto detecting the connection. If your 2 100Mb PCs are working then all of a sudden ur 3rd Gb PC is connected and everything goes to hell, might be something with that PC. Try manual 100Mb, and check. If good, try manual Gb and see. Are the NIC drivers for that PC updated too?

[emartinez]

Drivers are all updated, connection is always detected correctly at 1.0Gbps and there's never a balloon about the cable being disconnected or the network being down.

I'm not at home right now but I'll try setting it to 100Mb for sure. Very good idea. But the question remains... nothing changed in the configuration for a long time (at least 6 months). My previous desktop didn't have any issues, this desktop that replaced it didn't have any problems for about 5 months... It just doesn't make sense. I'll definitely need to run the 1.0Gbit connections once I finally configure the NAS that's been just collecting dust in a corner ^^ (I think that will happen when I start running out of space)

I'll post back when I have the results of forcing operation at 100Mbps.

[FurryNutz]

ya, it doesn't make sence. The ports should be fairly open on the LAN side and auto detect anything connected. Just wondering about this 3rd PC. I might try to put the 3rd PC in the room with the 4500 so you can troubleshoot easier. This would allow you to try a different cable too. Let us know how it goes.