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CE6 minibook flaky connectivity

Dana Page Icon Posted 2010-08-10 1:12 PM
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I was wondering if anybody has delved into the registry settings for the wifi in the generic Chinese minibooks.

One of the main things I use my minibook for is checking email at my cabin, where a group of us have put in a satellite internet system and local wifi. Like (so I understand) most satellite systems there is considerable lag, though the actual download throughput is quite good. Also the user load on our end is probably a bit much for the system. I expect it to be slow and it is, but when working with email using npopuk (a very good free offline mail reader, btw), I'm constantly plagued with "connection timed out" or "server disconnected". Sometimes it will take dozens of attempts just to get a few emails, while other times I can get dozens of emails at one shot with no trouble. Browsing is very slow, too.

People using "real" computers have much less trouble, assuming they can get the wifi signal (even with a commercial router and a big stick antenna, we don't have the coverage we'd like across the whole camp). My wife's laptop can get a weak but usable signal on our front porch but not inside the cabin, but I have to walk down to the road (about half the distance from our cabin to the antenna) to get connected.

I've asked these questions on the npopuk support forum, but I don't really think it's an npop problem. There are some registry settings related to the wifi adapter (FragThreshold, RTSThreshold, and TransmitSetting (going from memory here)) look interesting, but I don't have any idea what they actually do or what effect (if any) any changes would have.

Npop works great at home and on other fast connections. I realize I can't do much with the satellite system, but I'm hoping I can find some settings that make things more tolerant at my end.
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Jacobi Page Icon Posted 2010-08-11 5:15 AM
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It would be great to have a software solution; for now I only have a hardware suggestion:
seems the wifi reception is an overall problem at the camp, and especially in your case, there is weakness in the antenna on your netbook's wifi adapter.
So I would suggest setting up a router/AP with a cantenna to receive the signal from the main camp router and retransmit at/to your cabin. You could connect to it either via wifi or with an ethernet cable.
If you can't get the equipment soon enough to benefit this camping trip, have you tried to plug you netbook directly into the camp router with an ethernet cable? Does your email reader allow you to download a whole lot of emails at one time, for offline reading later back at your cabin?

Other than that,
regarding slow browsing,
you might want to check if your satellite service/ISP is caching DNS entries and how fast it refreshes; possibly if they allow it, one of the DNS proprietary entries on the point-of-entry internet connection could be substituted with a better DNS server.

Edited by Jacobi 2010-08-11 5:57 AM
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