TP-Link TL-WN722N Problems

[Ownaholic]

Hey all,

I made my first build yesterday, and so far things have gone relatively smooth. The biggest problem I'm having at the moment is with my internet.

Network specs before I go any further
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Network Card: TP-Link's TL-WN722N 150Mbps High Gain Wireless USB Adapter (Bear in mind, I'm only getting like 6Mbps download speed at peak times; fast compared to my laptop's regulra 3Mbps speed)
Router: Linksys WRT110 (A floor below me, and a room over, so the signal strength isn't the best it could be. Using a direct-wired-connection is out of the question)

Basically, my internet will go from lightning-fast, and drop immediately dead the next second. It is constantly resetting itself and re-connecting itself to my router, every couple of minutes.

I've power-cycled my router and modem more times today than I have in my entire lifetime; to no avail.

After I got my computer up and running, I used the drivers from the installation CD that came with it, and got the internet running. However, things were slow, so I decided to update the newest driver after all the other drivers were finished and installed. Honestly, it only made it worse.

I've even reverted back to the original driver, and now I can't even connect period.

I updated my EFI Bios via EZ Flash, thinking that it would help, and it went perfectly, and but it only made my connection problems worse. (At least I was able to connect before)

My laptop sitting a foot away from my computer has no problems whatsoever, and running a "tracert" on both computers one-after-the-other, the ISP servers were not lagging on my laptop whatsoever, but they were relatively higher on a few servers for my custom-built computer.
The servers for the website I was testing out (I used the WoW site) were like 3000+ms, whereas the same servers for the same site on my laptop were much less than that.

My internet has been spiking a lot the last week, even before I built the computer, however I feel like this isn't the problem; since I can use my laptop just fine while my computer is lagging away.

I'd say the ratio is 90% slowness to no connection at all, to 10% regular speeds. (That was before the BIOS update, and now I either can't connect period; or I'll have normal internet for a few seconds, it loads up my Google homepage right away, and then refuses to load anything else; then the cycle continues)

I haven't even been able to fully patch WoW in the course of an entire day's time; and downloading drivers takes excruciatingly long. (Unless I try it at a time where it's working, which then my speeds are completely fine)

I'm considering buying a high-gain wifi Signal Booster, like the Hawking HSB2 on Amazon and Newegg, but I fear it will not resolve my problem.

If it is worth any information: During all installations I have only been able to install the drivers, since for whatever reason the installation CD told me that the utility which comes along with the TL-WN722N driver, was not compatible with Windows 7 64-bit. (Despite the fact that all the reviews, and the box itself, says that it works with Windows 7. You'd think they'd make a note if it didn't with 64bit)

Does anybody have any idea what the problem is, or how to fix it?

Thank you so much!

 

[Maguscreed]

Trying to find information on the TL-WN722N device.
The website appears to not exist though, so I'm rather confused.

 

[Ownaholic]

Trying to find information on the TL-WN722N device.
The website appears to not exist though, so I'm rather confused.

It should be Tp-link.com ; but now that you mention it, I wasn't (and still can't) connect even now on my iPhone. Yet, last night during first install, I had zero problems connecting. Even early this morning I could.

Try looking for it on Newegg, it's just a white usb looking thing with an antenna.

 

[stormy13]

TP-Link Magus,

Welcome to TP-LINK

and the USB adapter in question,

TL-WN722N - Welcome to TP-LINK

Ownaholic if you haven't yet try the latest driver from here,

TL-WN722N - Welcome to TP-LINK

There is also an update utility download at the bottom of the page.

 

[Maguscreed]

Curious perhaps you could help him out some?
I get a redirect to this
http://121.14.104.227/block.html#tbl_a

Which produces a page my browsers will not display.

 

[Ownaholic]

TP-Link Magus,

Welcome to TP-LINK

and the USB adapter in question,

TL-WN722N - Welcome to TP-LINK

Ownaholic if you haven't yet try the latest driver from here,

TL-WN722N - Welcome to TP-LINK

There is also an update utility download at the bottom of the page.

Unfortunately, the latest utility is what started all the more serious problems, along with the latest driver. It was still relatively slow before I installed them, but when I installed the utility, I got an install box that had a lot of messed up text characters in the title during the install (the drivers don't have this problem), and then I got an error that said the utility isn't compatible with win7 64bit, and to only install the driver, which I did.

At this point, the internet couldn't even find my router, and I had to go in to the program files to remove the utility, then uninstalled the driver; restarted, reinstalled off the disc, and the problem persisted.

From there, I thought updating my Asus EFI BIOS might help, but since then it's been worse: I can't even get a connection to stay passed the homepage on my browser before it disconnects on me; which leaves me here clueless.

 

[stormy13]

Might want to look into whatever is blocking it on your end, seeing as it even says "block" in that link you posted.

You can see the adapter here,

Newegg.com - TP-LINK TL-WN727N Wireless N Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Up to 150Mbps Wireless Data Rates Support 64/128 bit WEP, WPA/WPA2/WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK, Wireless MAC Filtering

and if it helps any, the user guide,

View attachment tlwn722n.PDF

 

[Maguscreed]

Oh looks exactly like my belkin usb wireless.
I had issues with it, the solution was.

To Disable Selective Suspend:

open the control panel
go to power options (you may have to set view to small icons)
click change plan settings
in the window that opens:
click change plan settings
click change advanced power settings, expand usb and ensure usb selective suspend is disabled.

 

[Ownaholic]

It's actually a little different than that. It's the 722 model; not the 727. =]

Here's a link:
Newegg.com - TP-LINK TL-WN722N Wireless Adapter High Gain IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Up to 150Mbps Wireless Data Rates 64/128 bits WEP
WPA/WPA2, WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES)

I'll try disabling selective suspend when I get back to the compy in about 20 minutes.

 

[stormy13]

Oops, they came up one under the other in the list at Newegg,

Newegg.com - TP-LINK TL-WN722N Wireless Adapter High Gain IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Up to 150Mbps Wireless Data Rates 64/128 bits WEP WPA/WPA2, WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES)

 

[Maguscreed]

Oh and just in case. Have you tried using it on other usb ports?

 

[Ownaholic]

I've tried using multiple ports to no avail.

I reinstalled the original version of my bios and that got it working for about five minutes. But it worked REALLY well while it worked. Then all of a sudden, bam, it dropped the connection and started cycling through being connected, disconnected, limited access, etc.

I also noticed something else that is extremely out of the ordinary: My Linksys WRT110 router has a little amber LED above the wireless sync button. It NEVER does that. It also had that earlier, and I power cycled, then it went away.

Do you think I need to connect via that button, instead of typing in my WPA-PSK key?

Also, I did try that disabling the selective suspended USB thing, but unfortunately it didn't change anything.

 

[Maguscreed]

The key should be either right or not work at all.
I'm wondering what firewall / antivirus are you using.
It's really sounding like a software package is interfering with your connection at this point. We've ruled out several common possibilities already.

If you know how you can also try manually entering the tcp/ip info for the device incase the router is dropping it from the dhcp for some reason.

 

[Ownaholic]

The key should be either right or not work at all.
I'm wondering what firewall / antivirus are you using.
It's really sounding like a software package is interfering with your connection at this point. We've ruled out several common possibilities already.

If you know how you can also try manually entering the tcp/ip info for the device incase the router is dropping it from the dhcp for some reason.

I'm certain the key works; it's that I've never seen this amber LED above the sync button on my router before, and I've used it for over two years, so it has to be connected somehow. I updated the firmware a few hours ago in an attempt to fix it, but I doubt that would have any affect on the hardware itself. (Like making the LED light up yellow)

As for the antivirus, I actually was wondering that myself earlier. I'm using McAfee AntiVirus Plus.

I'm not sure how to manually enter the info, but I'm certain I can pull it off of you're willing to explain. =]

 

[Maguscreed]

It's a multistep process however

.... something just occurred to me, try this before we go to all that trouble.

How to disable certain Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) components in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008

 

[Ownaholic]

Well I had high hopes for that one, but that didn't seem to work either.

I tried the "replace ivp6 suffix with ivp4", which didn't work, then I just went straight for "disable ivp6", which also didn't work. =[ Is it possible that the order I did those in created a problem?

I'm not sure if you meant port forwarding by the tcp/ip thing, but I'm pretty familiar with that, if that is what you were saying.

 

[Maguscreed]

One other thing, I'm about to have to go to sleep here for now, but I was curious if the connection behaves properly when you plug into the router with lan?

 

[Ownaholic]

Ah, sorry you keep you up! It's late here as well, haha.

I wish I could test that out, but my modem and router are both downstairs, so I can't exactly plug in my computer to try it out. =[. I'd just move my setup down to test it out, but it would have to rest on the couch while i test it; something I was hoping to avoid. (lots of animal hair down there unfortunately)

My connection is actually miraculously -- well, not better, but it stopped disconnecting randomly all of a sudden. Now it is just super slow and sporadic. My WoW patcher was going from 900kbps to flat out 0 kbps, then back up, back down, etc. I was even able to log in for about a minute or two before I got disconnected.

Now it seems that it isn't necessarily disconnecting from my router anymore, but that the speeds are so unstable that firefox and WoW think there isn't a connection at times, because of the super slow response rate.

I doubt it will stay like this; tomorrow morning I will likely wake up to the first problem again, but it's possible that we're making progress, haha.

Thanks for all your help so far, I guess we'll resume the festivities tomorrow; have a good night!

 

[Maguscreed]

That speed variation may actually be a signal strength problem if it's running through a lot of walls and floors. Usb wireless devices don't have the best reception. (I should know I have one)

My friend has a cheap-o pci card that has a antenna that sits on top of the computer case that seems to get awesome reception in comparison. Though it's only wireless g in his case. similar to this
Amazon.com: HiRO 54Mbps Wireless-G PCI Adapter with 2dBi Omni Direction Antenna (H50069): Electronics

 

[Ownaholic]

That speed variation may actually be a signal strength problem if it's running through a lot of walls and floors. Usb wireless devices don't have the best reception. (I should know I have one)

My friend has a cheap-o pci card that has a antenna that sits on top of the computer case that seems to get awesome reception in comparison. Though it's only wireless g in his case. similar to this
Amazon.com: HiRO 54Mbps Wireless-G PCI Adapter with 2dBi Omni Direction Antenna (H50069): Electronics

That would make perfect sense, except for some reason this thing actually gets more reception than my laptop does; it has a higher signal strength and it scored higher on the online speed test things. And yet, my laptop still runs more stable and faster.
Could it still be possible that it is the weak signal strength despite the fact that it appears to be stronger? Plus all the reviews of the product said it had excellent signal strength in places as large as corporate offices.

Oddly enough, I'm actually writing this on the computer itself for once rather than my phone, but not without having to refresh the page multiple times due to the "Problem loading page" error. It's weird, one second I'll get errors like that, the next it'll work fine; rinse and repeat.

I wouldn't mind installing an internal card, but I'm a little wary that I'll still have the same problems. (I'd have no issue installing it at least, since my mobo has plenty of PCI slots left over) Plus I would prefer something with wireless-N.

I've read some things about products like "High Gain Signal Boosters"? I wouldn't be able to use them on my router since it has no antennas, but I could probably attach it to the antenna of my adapter. Something like this:
Amazon.com: Hawking HSB2 HiGain Signal Booster: Electronics

Just a shame that this is giving me so much trouble. Out of my entire computer build, I expected the network card to be the smoothest working item, and it's actually been the most complicated one. (To add insult to injury, my girlfriend bought me this card as a birthday-gift towards the build...I suppose I could always use it for my laptop though)

*edit*
Just after I finished writing this, I adjusted the positioning of the adapter. I barely did anything at all to be honest, but now I'm getting stable connections of 900-1000kbps for the time being. All I seriously did was move it over maybe an inch or two; but it was already on the top of my case to begin with. My wireless mouse receiver is sitting relatively close to it, do you think that could have been causing interference? Prior to repositioning, it was almost in-line with the receiver.

I just hope it stays this way permanently, and I'll be one happy camper. I'll let you know in the morning! *fingers crossed*