Problem with D-link DWA-556

uzilover · 15 Sep 2010

Hello to everyone on this forum, heres my problem

I got back from work a week ago and my connection was suddenly slow. It was fine in the morning and then in the evening it was slow, and still is.

Ive got 3 pcs on the network and mine is the only one with this problem.

Ive got a

Windows 7 64bit
D-Link DIR-655 Router
D-Link DWA-556 Xtreme N PCI Express Desktop Adapter
Comodo internet security

Ive tried multiple drivers, from D-link and atheros. Also tried static ips, and editing bits in services.exe. Ive done virus scans, tried without a firewall and tried in safe mode. Nothing has worked.

I get around 2.5mbps on the speed test, the other 2 pc's get 17mbps

Im out of ideas, can anyone help?

chev65 · 15 Sep 2010

Hello uzilover,

I can tell you that with my D-link DWA-140, the drivers from the CD were not good at all and the software that it installed was just as useless. The software also used cpu cycles for no reason and only wanted to use wireless G for some reason.

I have the exact same router as you do by the way, using the latest firmeware version 1.33NA, but my adaptor is a different model so no telling if this procedure will help in your case but it's worth a try.

How I fixed this problem was to unplug the adaptor from the USB port, uninstall the Dlink software through add-remove programs and uninstalled the driver from the device manger.

I shut down the machine and plugged in the USB adaptor, rebooted and let Windows install it's own drivers for the DWA-140.

After that I used the built in Win 7 wireless connection set up and made sure to set it to use wireless N and AES only encryption only "not mixed". Your new Windows 7 drivers are linked at the bottom of this page.

I also went into my routers manual wireless set up and set it to use WPA-2 AES only and set to use N and G only, along with standard DHCP setting.

I scanned the area and went with channel 7 because nobody around seems to use that one. I used Xirrus wi-fi scanner for this. Xirrus: The Leader in High Performance Wi-Fi - Advanced IT Wi-Fi Networking Tools

This was for my garage computer approx. 60 feet from my router through two walls and with a few palm trees in the way. I also use the USB extension to get the adaptor pointed towards the house.

The signal strength stayed the same at two bars but the connection speed went from 2.98Mbps to 14.98Mbps, huge difference between N and G speeds and despite only having two bars the connection is perfect and very fast.

With this type of speed I can stream HD movies out to my gargage, not a single skip or stutter problem testing a bunch of movies, even with two bars.

The Anthros drivers are supposed to work better for your PCI adaptor. Dlink forum explains this in the link below.
Source> http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=9799.0

For the new Windows 7 drivers scroll down to Kyjibo's post and click on the second link in his post where it says "here" Link for this below. Use the second set for Win 7.
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/atheros.htm

Good luck, let me know if these new drivers work for you.

uzilover · 16 Sep 2010

Ive installed the 8.0.0.351 driver from station-drivers, speed returned to normal (about 1.2MB/s).

But the speeds goes all the way down for a few minutes then speeds back up again, ive tried a few download links and its the same with all of them.

I also install the Xirrus program, ive changed my channel to 7 in my router, but the Xirrus says im on channel 7 and 3, is this because my 802.11 Mode is mixed N & G?

chev65 · 16 Sep 2010

I can't imagine why it would show you as being on two channels at the same time. I'm using mixed N and G but only channel 7 is being used. I think I would start by resetting the router.

If you have any type of A/V software installed on your machine that would next place I would look for problems.

I have no idea what "station drivers" are but I would definately go with the drivers I linked to. The forum linked too in my previous post talks about problems with this adaptor and far as I know they are fixed with the driver I posted to in my last post.