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Intermittent dropouts Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205

chris.brunt
Level 1
Level 1

We are having big problems just with this particular adapter in our environment. We are getting intermittent dropouts. The connection will freeze and stop responding to the point where you have to do a windows repair or restart the adapter to get it working again. You can be connected for a whole day with no issues or it could happen at random eg after 20 mins of being connected. Other devices in close proximity e.g. an intel 5100 and 5300 agn are working perfectly.

You get no indication that the connection has dropped and the adapter in the systray looks as if it is still transmitting packets but not recieving any. Cisco WCS troubleshoot indicates no problems. Events in the debug stop and dont start again until you do a repair on the machine.

Intel and Lenovo support have been really unhelpful (they basically don't want to know, apalling service), so now i am turning to Cisco just in case its a configuration issue, which i don't believe it is as we have no reported issues at all with other clients.

On the machine sides we have:

Lenovo x220 Tablet with Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 mini pci-e adapter.

Also happening with Fujitsu T730 tablets also with with Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 mini pci-e adapters

We have tried all intel driver versions from the latest 14.2.0.10 down to the OEM versions supplied.

they are running Windows XP SP3. We have also tried it with Windows 7 and get similar issues.

We are using Windows Wireless Zero Configuration, WPA2-AES with PEAP and machine (computer) authentication against Cisco ACS v5.2 talking to AD.

On the Wireless infrastructure side we have:

Cisco 1142N (-E-K9) APs connected to 3750G w/poe stacks

The controller is a 3750G-24-WS-50 model running version 7.0.116.0

managed by WCS.

The wireless has 20mhz channels on 1,6,11 on the 2.4ghz side (N is disabled) but we do have N enabled with 40mhz channels on the 5ghz with all UK country channels.

The machines connect at up to 300mb/s and signal quality is excellent. AP density is quite high in the room. DCA, TPC and Tx power control are enabled and set to automatic.

Can't think of more detail to include but I would appreciate any ideas anyone may have.

67 Replies 67

Ah... okay.  So disabling load balancing didn't help?

-Scott
*** Please rate helpful posts ***

I'm waiting for feedback from the users. Unfortunately I am not on site myself.

Okay

-Scott
*** Please rate helpful posts ***

mike.willing
Level 1
Level 1

I changed the radio policy to all and forced it to (a) on the client side.  Still seeing the same issue.  I opened a TAC case to see what they have to say.

I experienced this same issue when the help desk started to roll out new laptops. After an extensive amount of troubleshooting, updating the laptop wireless NIC driver resolved the issue.

My laptop model is a Dell 6420 and it has the same wireless NIC as your Lenovo:

Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6205

Out of the box, the driver version was 14.0.1.2.

When I updated the driver version to 14.2.0.10, the issue was resolved. I downloaded the driver directly from Intels site.

Just want to chime in here. 

We are also suffering from this exact same issue at our organization. 

We tried upgrading to the latest drivers, but it didnt help. 

Same card: Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6205, on HP 8460p's, Windows 7

The joys of wireless cards, each vendor has a slightly different FRU number on the card and they are slightly different so while it might work in one manufacture another might have introduced an issue. I've been down this road before.

Do you have any Symantic products installed on the machines? I've seen that cause issues before with Intel cards. Uninstalling any Symantec firewall type products resolved in the past for me. I would look at the network adapters, anything that was installed that puts any hooks into the properties page where you configure your IPv4/IPv6 properties should be removed for testing.

Check your roaming aggressiveness. We deployed a few hundred new dells and the image had roaming set to aggressive on the intel client.  Once we dialed them back the disconnects stops all together.

"Satisfaction does not come from knowing the solution, it comes from knowing why." - Rosalind Franklin
___________________________________________________________

Problem solved (for me anyway)

Hi all.

I had the same problem with Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 wifi card.

We just bought 500 Lenovo X220i and Lenovo L520 and they suffered from the same problem.

We are running Microsoft Windows XP PRO PS3 DK with driver version 14.3.0.6 from Intel’s webpage.

There is no Lenovo software installed what so ever other than the hardware drivers.

And our wifi controllers are MERU.

I did the following (on a Danish XP so maybe some translation errors here).

Open System in Control Panel. Click Hardware, device manager and find the wifi card.

Go to Advanced and under properties scroll down to the power management. Remove the check mark to the right (standard value) and set the slider to max.

Hope this helps you also.

Kind regard

I can confirm that the issue happens on both Meru and Cisco hardware, as we are moving from Meru to Cisco (slowly) and some of our older sites are still running Meru.

I'm trying the power management click box that Brian suggested and will report, my findings.

Have a good one

We got a 10 of these laptops and ran them for a day and tried adjusting the power management settings. Roaming agressiveness. Disabling a (just using b/g), disabling b/g (just using a), disabled n. Transmit power etc....  Nothing makes any difference to the drop outs. This is clearly an Intel adapter/driver issue.

chris.brunt
Level 1
Level 1

Just to confirm after over a week of testing. Disabling band select and client load balancing has made no difference to the drop outs with the 6205.

No choice but to log a TAC case for this now. We need Intel to look at this but we have no way of logging a call with them.

David Tamburin
Level 1
Level 1

Just to confirm also.  I am seeing the same results as chris.brunt, nothing helps.

Davidt

Hi All,

I wanted to shed some light on this topic. We are aware of an issue with connection dropouts on the Intel 6205 specifically. The issue will be resolved in the 15.1 Intel drivers. The root cause has to do with a failure to ack a packet when Infrastructure MFP is enabled, so the current workaround is to disable infrastructure MFP.

If you can, please try disabling Infrastructure MFP and test the client connectivity.

-config wps mfp infrastructure disable

Regards,

-Pat

Thanks this is very useful. I have rolled out this workaround and have asked all of my users to test. We should know in a few days if this has resolved the issue.

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