FW Wireless Problems

I don't know if this is a Vista thing or a Sony thing.

I am getting really inconsistent download speeds when using wireless. I also get horrible speeds when sharing files on my network. I'll go to http://www.speedtest.net and get a 288 kb/s download speed than do another one right after and get 1,277 kb/s. This doesn't make sense. Help!


Thanks

 

The wireless on my FW160D is really messed up as well, and I've read a few other posts having problems also. What model do you have?

 

My wireless connection has been solid.

Which wireless card do you guys have?

 

Wireless problems are notoriously tricky to nail down, because of the almost limitless combinations of hardware, drivers, software and physical environments involved.

If you have already installed the most recent drivers for your wireless card, I would investigate updating the firmware in your router or at least examining the settings to check everything's set up as you would want.

matt_shaw: have you tried your laptop on a friend's wlan or public hotspot, to check it's definitely your laptop and not your router/network causing the problem?

 

ah it seems those who got earlier from newegg got rather bad Atheros wireless cards. Most of the complaints have been from them. Sony support is useless for this kinda stuff because they only support the intel cards. try downloading the latest drivers from the link on the FW tread.

I have the Intel card and my wireless connections are great. Speeds go up and down a bit every once in a while as expected, but they are consistent enough. I do which to ethernet for large downloads since its more consistent and faster.

 

Bummer. Guess I'm lucky, I got the Intel WiFi Link 5100.

 

Not luck I think. ISTR Nixon said that only the FW139 model had the Atheros card, because they wanted to launch the FW and there weren't any/enough Intel cards available.

 

most early models available at newegg or other retailers before they are available at sonystyle have some sort of issue. in you case it was the harddrive, unless it really is supposed to be 250 GB for the model.

 

the 140 got it too and as joey said so did 160D, early retail models had atheros instead of intel for most of them.

 

It really stinks that Sony penalizes those that buy their products first.

 

According to Sony it's supposed to be 200GB 7200 rpm.

I took a screenshot of it in case they pull a switcharoo.

 

So, what can I do? I bought mine from the Sony Style in town, not from Newegg or anything. Unfortunately, the people in the store are pretty dumb, so should I just try and go through the Sony support or what? My card is an Atheros as well.

 

IMHO, you should stilll try sony style first, the employees are stupid, but if you print out the specs and show them that you have a wireless card in your laptop that is not of the one advertised then they should do somethings.
try to exhaust all your options before calling/sending it out

 

Thing is though Dave159, is I'm out of the country and will be for the next few months, so I don't have the option of going into the store.

If I called up Sony and had a go at them, do you think they would give me a discount on an FW180D when I return my FW160D?

 

I have the FW140D. I don't get it though. It shipped August 14th, so you think that it would be the up to date model?

http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/se...Id=1005352&navigationPath=32009n100299n100490

I guess even if I could return it (I really need it for school), they wouldn't let me. It says it uses the Atheros card and not the Intel one.

 

I hate to say I told you so about the Atheros cards right from the beginning, but " I told you so"....Sony now won't support them worth a hoot. The Atheros cards were a bandaid so Sony could get the FW into stores early.

 

Hmmm, I just purchased a FW139 and it's supposed to have the Intel Wireless 4965AGN Wi-Fi chip. I hope they made FW139s with different specs for some reason, not that there's a mistake in the product description of the online store were I bought it. I'll check as soon as it arrives.

 

Here is the solution, according to Sony.

Haven't needed to use it yet though, my wireless has been working fine for the past 6 hours. Hmmm.

 

you can probably get them to return it. If you ordered a CTO or from sonystyle website you should be fine. Me and tetonwolf were some to of the first to order them, and i got an intel card, i think teton got one too.

 

Even if the specifications said that I was getting an Atheros card, it definitely isn't working the way it should be. What actions do you guys think I have? I hope Sony/Atheros steps up and fixes this problem. I am sick of downloading at 6 kb/s.

Also a quick question. Sony says that I can return the product up to 15 days after the date on the receipt. Would this apply to me? As I ordered on the 3rd and received on the 19th. So it would be impossible for me to even know if my unit is defective without actually using it. I am going to call tomorrow (Friday) and see what I can get worked out. I can't see them not doing anything.

 

As far as I am aware, the 15 days should start from when your card was charged rather than the date you first ordered it...

Good luck!

 

knowing candian sony style, you could try but they are a touch nut to crack. i've tried getting a deal when i bought by FW, but it didn't work out.

 

Thanks InfyMcGirk, I hope that's the case.

I've been doing a bunch of speed tests and my upload speed is definitely on par with my desktop that's using a wired connection to the router, it's just wireless downloading. Does this give you computer gods anymore insight into maybe fixing my problem?

 

unfortunatly the canadian policy is; all laptop, computers, and accessories have a "15 Days from the date listed on the receipt."

source: http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/se...upport/ShippingNReturns/shipping_returns.html

 

I think they should be sympathetic towards your situation, realistically they should fix your laptop, your caught in a loop hole

 

I agree. There's no point in having a 15 day returns policy if they take over 15 days to ship and claim the timer starts from the initial date of the order. I would politely point this out to them.

Re: the specific problem with your wireless... is your router MIMO? It's weird that the problem only seems to occur in one direction, so maybe investigate if all the aerials are connected properly (disconnect/reconnect them, if that's possible with your model).
Also, I assume you've tried updating the driver for your (?Atheros) card and also checked your router settings and made sure you're running the latest stable firmware for it? ILoveMoogles mentioned that updating the driver for his wireless card fixed an issue he was having with lag while gaming, so it's worth a try.

Have you disabled IPv6 in your network settings? It's worth a shot. Also, try running TCP Optimizer to see if tweaking your registry settings helps. Things like reducing the MTU can often help, but I can't remember the optimum settings so just let TCP Optimizer do its thing. (You can opt to make a backup of your existing settings first, which I would recommend doing just in case!)

 

Correct. Centrino 2 sticker means Intel wireless...no Centrino 2 sticker means Atheros. All FW CTOs coming out of US Sonystyle were Centrino 2 from day 1.