I have a Win7 network with a NetGear FVS336G connecting locally by wired Ethernet through a WAP2000 to laptop wireless machines. All works okay after booting a Win7 wireless machine for about 20 minutes. Then, the wireless machine loses connectivity with the ethernet-connected machines. The ethernet-connected machines cannot ping the wireless machine, but the wireless machine CAN ping the ethernet machines. The ethernet-connected machines show the wireless machine entry in the ARP cache as invalid. The wireless machine's ARP cache continues to show the ethernet-connected machines as dynamic.
Rebooting the wireless machine restores connectivity and ARP cache validity for another ~20 minutes. Rebooting the WAP2000 also restores connectivity for about the same time interval.
The ping diagnostic facility on the FVS336G is able to ping the wireless machine before and after the connectivity loss. The wireless machines is not sleeping, and it remains connected with the wireless network with excellent signal strength throughout. It also continues to have uninterrupted Internet access via a WAN port on the FVS336G and an attached modem. The FVS336G provides DHCP for the entire system and recognizes both ethernet-connected and wireless machines with its ARP scans.
It appears that the negotiations that maintain the ARP tables and the NBT tables on the ethernet-connected machines do not pass through the wireless network to the laptop. Is this a security feature of the WAP2000? Or, is there some configuration issue I'm not seeing.
---------------------------------
After trying every available configuration option to solve the above problem without success, even with the help of Microsoft, I finally replaced the WAP2000 with an old LinkSys WAP54G. The WAP54G is now working flawlessly using the exact same wireless configuration. It would have been nice to have the additional features of the WAP2000, but I've given up on it. I'm convinced that the WAP2000 has a bug that produces the above-described problem.
Message was edited by: George Eilers
