WiFi solution? Just a thought

[Johna2u]

Yann I will probably get a touchpad when I can. There are quite a few on craigslist for sub 200.00. We are straying from the point of this thread though.

So far it seems the squeeze solution doesn't have any miracles to report. I do believe the problem with wi fi on Le Pan is probably a similar antenna connection problem to the asus prime. I swear my Le Pan gets a great and steady signal loads web pages quickly streams and downloads videos with no problem. Others report they can barely get a signal. It seems it must be a hardware connection problem for the most part.

 

[J515OP]

That's too bad I was really rooting for this simple solution.

 

[Johna2u]

There is still hope. I am not sure anybody with issues has seen this and actually tried it yet. I had hoped we would have seen raves here by now if it worked.

 

[Rzah]

Here is a picture of the Le Pan 2 internals. It looks to me like the pogo pins are between the 30 pin connector and the sdcard slot but I am not sure. Definitely along the top edge.
oops. Try this one.

The pogo pins in that picture are in between the volume rocker and the hold switch. I will be trying the fix once I get wifi analyzer downloaded.

 

[Lykele]

Johna2u - My understanding of the pogo pin is to connect electronic components. So if someone was having no problem with their LePan and squeezed these pins would that program (wifi-analyzer) actually indicate anything? I've never used that program so not sure what it would show. When I watched the video I was assuming she was squeezing the pogo pins to 'reset' them because the spring had not fully extended the pin and thus one (or both) was not making contact. Kinda like a ballpoint pen that is either out or not.

As you've said the real test is someone who is having real WiFi problems.

Lykele

 

[yann2]

The wifi problems in the Le Pan tablets (and the lack of any real support from the company to solve the issues) are a real pain.

In my opinion, there's probably software, configuration issues - in my case, running a LP1 with stock factory firmware gave slow wifi, very peaky file transfer results.

Switching to the CM7 Beta worsened the picture - as it was built using an older factory firmware version. I can't complete the usual tests I have done (and reported in this thread) with CM7 Betas.

What changed? the hardware is the same, I just replaced the whole operating system on the unit when I flashed the Beta.

I hope there's isn't an issue with the metal back panel affecting wifi antenna performance. That would be a more serious and difficult to correct issue.

About the Le Pan II, I don't have one, but people report similar speeds and in my opinion, flaky results with it.

If Matsunichi would spend the time or the money to pay for some support, they could improve it. As it is, they seem to forget and abandon the current models as soon as they release a new one. Then repeat the cycle.

 

[Johna2u]

Given there is a definate software problem with le pan. all firmware copies are identical. Why do people report such a wide spectrum of user experience? From great connection with no issues to "can barely connect." There has to be some variable. A poor antenna connection on some tablets seems possible to me. I don't know if the pogo pins are the culprit, but there has to be a loose connection or faulty part on some units. If it was the metal back, that is a constant. We all have that. Has to be something that can vary unit to unit.

 

[Rzah]

Pinching the area around the volume rocker and hold switch did nothing for me. After some messing around with my router and eventually getting a new one I have much better signal and speed. I am getting now -49 dbm and 10mbps. My old router was just junk. I am happy with my speed and signal now. I believe it is a software issue along with the aluminum back cover.

 

[yann2]

Some people report great connections - without quantifying exactly what that means.

We have done some testing, and you can get a thruput number, as well as a snapshot of the wireless activity.

Like this one :



^--- Clicking on the images will display the Full Size ones.

That's a video file copy, from a Windows 7 laptop to a Le Pan II tablet. Neither of them mine, data supplied by adamv.

Looking at that graph, I honestly am not happy.

Comparison data - similar test, done at my home, 650 MB video file, Archos 101T tablet :

Network thruput is twice the average 8 Mb/s reported by various users. The graph shows a much more stable and saturated transfer as well. Average is about 14 Mb/s.

 

[J515OP]

Don't you sort of have to be on the same network for a valid comparison though? I mean there could be other issues such as adamv having the wifi set to channel 6 wile all 10 other wifis in range are also on channel 6. I like the idea but I think it may be hard to make a straight up comparison this way (walls between router, distance from router, router settings etc.)

 

[yann2]

J51OP, yes, there's all kinds of variations possible - which makes complaining (and getting results) about wifi networking very hard.

I have posted results from 4 different wireless devices, all working in the same environment. And the Le Pan 1 is the runt of the litter.

Here's a snapshot of my TC970 running the same test as the Archos above (or Adam's LPII) :

That's 8% average NIC utilization, so 8 Mb/s. The test file was housed in my Windows 2003 Server in all cases, and it shows 8 Mb/s for the LP1, 14 Mb/s for the Archos 101T, 22 Mb/s for my laptop's wireless card. All connected to a Linksys WRT54GL router, with Tomato linux firmware.

If someone has a good connection, I would love to see a snapshot like these - I can post a new thread with how to do the measurements and take snapshots, etc.

 

[J515OP]

yann2 thanks for the update on your tests. I think it had been mentioned previously (maybe by you) that the throughput of the TC970 was 8Mb/s (or was that in reference to the SD card?). It definitely seems like the Le Pans are on the slower side for data but obviously it is a much bigger issue for some that have little to no connection. I would also like to see what results others have using this method or Wifi Analyzer.

To me it does sound like it is a poor internal connection issue more than anything. Whether that is pogo pins or general assembly issues, who knows. It certainly doesn't seem to help that even with a healthy connection the throughput it still slow. Hopefully we can see several posts like yours and Rzah's to get more data.

 

[yann2]

Yes, I have seen and mentioned the 8Mb/s on those file transfer tests.

Forgot to mention, the previous graph of the TC970 shown above was running the factory firmware, the leaked version 4749 build. I am not able to complete the same test with the CM7 Beta builds, unfortunately.

Just installed the CM7 Beta 4 release, and it still has wifi problems - here's a snapshot :

This was going rather well - showing about 12% or 12 Mb/s in the server's NIC load. And a solid, steady transfer too.

If only it would stay on - it fails at about 6 to 8% of the file copy stage.

I had just installed WiFi Fixer, and it shows in the Notifications area that it detects the problem, works thru steps to restore the connection, etc. Eventually, it gets wifi back up and running, but the file copy has long failed.

For someone using any kinds of data streaming, like online videos, this will be a very frustrating experience. For casual use, web browsing, WiFi fixer might be a good thing to have running unless we can get a better fix.

Cas_xp, the developer of our CM7 port, said he tried to use the latest firmware (4749, leaked version, which we had a better experience with) to build this latest Beta 4, but there were some problems, so he went back to the older version he had used previously.

 

[Johna2u]

Yann I find wi fi fixer just shuts down my connection. it connects then diconnects in a constant cycle. I've tried it twice and had to uninstll it each time. I generally don't recommend it.

why does my lp 2 work fine?. I cn stream hd video ith no problem even with the youtube app. Download large files. It really works quite well. I do run into the occasional video that won't play but that happens on my wired desktop too. Others report their le pans will barely connect and can't even load a web page. What is different?

 

[yann2]

I was watching XDA Developers channel on YouTube last night, catching up with the new videos, etc. A lot of good content there, plus SassiBob.

I had to switch to lower rez all the time, their videos are all HD streams which will play on my Touchpad, but too demanding for the LP. Even so, it did have hiccups here and there.

Having WiFi Fixer, I could see it in the notifications area. While it's not very fast (sometimes I manually toggled wifi off, then back on to recover), it did resume connections that would not work otherwise. So, I think it's a good program to consider having.

If it disconnects, it's because it's seeing some problem with the wifi connection - there's some choice of settings, from a more aggressive wifi prioritizing one to some for lighter uses; I had it on the wifi highest priority.

John, if you did a test and took a snapshot of a file copy operation we could better understand how well your connection really is working. The choppiness we see on Adam's snapshot above is not a good thing, I believe it could be improved by settings possibly. Since the rooted LPIIs can run init.d scripts, I would love to try the wifi one dbaybay posted - it shows things that are similar to what I use on my Windows machines to maximize their networking efficiency.

Transmit and receive buffers, for example. While it's really easy to tune those up in Windows, in Android wifi seems to be a 'second thought', sadly.