X-Surf-100 suddenly stopped working reliably

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.

    Hi :)

    I purchased an X-Surf-100 about a month ago, and in that time until Thursday Aug 12th, it was working flawlessly in my Amiga 4000D.


    On Friday, I booted up the machine - with no changes in software, hardware or the internet connection - and suddenly the card seems to have issues with connecting and/or working reliably.


    Ping to my gateway shows huge packet loss (anywhere between 20 and 90 percent). Very occasionally, it connects and works fine but then fails again later.


    I have tried the same cable, changing nothing in between it and the router, on numerous PCs and connectivity is fine. Same with other cables I have.


    In case of power supply issues, I also removed the CyberVision 64/3D and AD516 cards (both of which work perfectly still) from the system and tried again, with no effect. The rest of the system is totally stable.


    Finally, I tried changing the jumper to Z2 instead of Z3. This also made no difference.

    It appears to me that something has gone wrong with the card, but at this stage I have no diagnostics to prove this, other than packet loss.


    Other notes: I'm using AmiTCP set up manually, as I always do on Amiga machines. I had changed nothing about the configuration. It's using a Static IP, unoccupied by anything else. The machine is using a BFG9060, and has been since installation of the X-Surf (and before) with no issues previously.


    Thanks for your help,
    Mark

    Update: Tried this on the A3000, which was in the basement (you'll see why this is relevant in a moment), and the card worked flawlessly.


    To rule out the A4000 as being the issue, I took the machine upstairs and tried it on the same connection the A4000 was using - and it did the same thing as the A4000.


    The difference? The connection in the basement goes directly to the modem/router from Bell (the telecoms company I use here in Canada). The connection upstairs goes via these wireless electric socket adapters they provided the house with to connect to the router in the basement.

    So, I have to bow my head in shame and conclude that the card is not (directly at least) at fault here, it seems. I must apologize for that and the delay in trying this particular test, which was down to an injury that made it difficult to unpack the A3000 from storage (or carry the A4000 downstairs for that matter).


    It doesn't explain why this suddenly stopped working properly, especially when all PCs connected to the same connection (and cable, etc.) work fine - but I'm going to hazard a guess that Bell made some remote update to the modem/router that has broken the ability of the X-Surf-100 to reliably work with the wifi units.

    Could this be something we can diagnose together? Even if it's Bell's issue, maybe the card's driver could somehow accommodate the change?

    Update 2: I had an epiphany. I dug out my old network switch that I never use these days, as it's too slow. Plugged the cable to that, then ran a short one to the Amiga and X-Surf-100.


    This seems to solve the problem!

    Still probably worth investigating the cause here, but if this works back in the A4000, I'll be good to go for now at least.

    You're talking about powerline communication in your first posts, but later about a Wifi adapter. Both are substantially different technologies, and they come with their own specific problems.


    My dad used to use these Powerline communications adapters, and he had to replace them about once a year, because they just fried themselves. Some of these can't deal with larger MTU sizes, and if a router update is the culprit, we'd have to take a look at the subnet type.


    About your solution: Is the Wifi/Powerline adapter still in the loop, or did you run a cable?


    Jens

    Where do I say about "powerline communication"? I didn't mention that in the first posts. (I will also check my emails in case my wording was poor there...) EDIT: Ah so I admit "wireless electric socket adapters" is ambiguous in my second post, sorry I should have been clearer there.


    Still, for clarity these are Wifi adapters that plug straight into the wall. They don't send or receive over the power line itself, but are standalone units with two ethernet connectors on them, which use Wifi to connect with the router. Perhaps these are unique to North America? I assumed they were not. They are very fast nonetheless, I was suspicious of them to start with as Bell supplied them, not my choice. But they work very well (on everything else at least).

    The suspicion of power supply issues I was mentioning were relating to the Amiga itself, and I've ruled that out.


    For my solution, the wifi adapter is still in the loop, just with the old network switch in between. Works perfectly now.


    It goes: cable from the Amiga to network switch, cable from that to wifi adapter on the wall. (And then wifi to the modem/router in the basement).

    Quote from retrotechtive

    Still, for clarity these are Wifi adapters that plug straight into the wall. They don't send or receive over the power line itself, but are standalone units with two ethernet connectors on them, which use Wifi to connect with the router. Perhaps these are unique to North America?

    I'd call this "access point", but the terminology goes back to 11MBit Wifi.


    Quote from retrotechtive

    For my solution, the wifi adapter is still in the loop, just with the old network switch in between. Works perfectly now.

    So we're really talking about a local communication problem between the PHY of the access pont and the PHY of the X-Surf-100. Do you have any configuration options in the Wifi adapters? If so, please look for any energy-saving options. These often violate the specs and confuse older 100MBit PHYs. The X_Surf-100 does not implement any of the new fancy power-saving Ethernet standards.


    Jens

    Unfortunately, I don't believe there are any configuration options on the Wifi "pods" (as Bell call them) themselves, no DIP switches or anything like that. I don't think they have an IP address to connect to either. I'll try and dig out some more info from them, but from a user standpoint they are very simple - plug in and go.


    Maybe some configuration options exist on the router for them, I'll have a look.


    Energy saving options do sound like a possibility though.