Living with the Dvico TViX HD M-4000 PA - Going Wireless
After looking at my filesystem options, I decided to experiment with the FTP route over wireless, because I’d rather not be faffing about with plugging stuff in if I can help it. The TViX supports wireless via a USB adaptor, which are pretty cheap, so I thought I’d have a play.
Currently, the TVIX supports 3 different wireless adaptors
- D-Link DWL-G122 (HW ver. C1)
- Belkin F5D7050 with Ralink chip
- Linksys WUSB54GC
I eventually went for the Linksys, simply because it’s the only one where you can be confident you’re getting the right model. I did try a Belkin, but apparently they’re used several different chipsets in that particular model and there’s no way of telling which one you’re going to get unless you look at the contents on the CD-ROM. I got the wrong one, obviously.
However, plugging in the Linksys opened up all the wireless configuration options in the menu and it didn’t take very long to get it up and running on the network. A slightly annoying restriction is that it only supports 64-bit WEP, which means I had to downgrade my security slightly to get the box on my network. I imagine this will probably be dealt with in a future firmware update.
The setup is fairly self-explanatory if you’ve ever had to set up any network device, but it’s certainly not ZeroConf. There’s a manual available from the manufacturers though, and they’ve also put together a little video to walk you through it if needs be.
COMMENTS / 8 COMMENTS
Anton, Jul 30 07 at 10:50 amHi,
Have you got any problem with wireless connection? How stable is it in your case?
This is what I have:
1. M4000PA+2.2.0 firmware+D-Link DWL122 HW:C1 wireless adapter.
2. WinXP SP2 PC with MS NFS server installed.In wired mode everything works perfect. i.e. ftp access from the pc to the box and nfs access from the box to the PC
In wireless mode everything (even ftp access from the pc to the box) is completely unstable. After a short period of time (5-10 sec) of network activity the box crashes and automatically switches off.I don’t think it’s an issue of my wireless environment because during testing:
1. I put the tvix box right next to my wireless AP. It didn’t help.
2. I used the D-Link DWL-122 wireless adapter to connect a laptop to my wireless AP and it worked perfect.
So, there is definitely something wrong with wireless support in M4000PA even with the latest firmware. I’m thinking about trying Linksys WUSB54GC but not sure if it’ll help.Anton.
tismey, Jul 30 07 at 5:19 pmI’ve had no problems at all with my wireless setup, and definitely nothing as serious as you describe. A couple of things to check though - do you have your router set to distribute IP addresses via DHCP? If so, you might want to change that so you set the IP addresses manually. I did have a problem initially where my TViX kept knocking my laptop off the network.
What wireless encryption do you have on your network?
Anton, Jul 31 07 at 8:31 amI think I already tried everything except changing the wireless adapter. I tried:
1. Dhcp and static ip addresses
2. wep64 and no encryption at all
3. linksys wag354g and 3com officeconnect access points
4. 2.1.4 and 2.2.0 firmwares
I’m running out of ideas.
tismey, Jul 31 07 at 11:51 amIt does sound like you’ve tried everything. i guess your next step would be to try a different wireless adaptor, and if that doesn’t help then maybe you’ve got a problem with your box…
Anton, Aug 04 07 at 11:35 amI bought and tried a Linksys WUSB54GC and still had the same problem. I think there is definitely a bug in firmwares because after a period of time of network activity the box crashes and automatically switches off. As far as I understand it shouldn’t happen anyway. Have you ever seen a sudden switching off of your TVIX? Do you use any NFS server? AFAIK you use MacOS and unfortunately you cannot confirm if the Microsoft services for UNIX work OK for you
Anton.
tismey, Aug 06 07 at 10:22 amYeah, I use Mac OSX, and NFS streaming works perfectly over wireless. I also have no problems FTPing wirelessly. I have had the box switch off suddenly, but that seemed to be related to things other than wireless access (generally trying to delete / move files with odd permissions).
I’ve seen a number of forum threads in different places which suggest Netshare doesn’t play nicely with wireless.
Bucho, Jan 23 08 at 1:26 amHi,
I have exactly the same problem as Anton. The funny thing is I am also using a 3Com office connect 11g router…Could it be related to an interop issue with this Access Point?????
Bucho
tismey, Jan 23 08 at 8:40 amI suppose it’s possible - I guess the only way to check would be to try a different AP / router. Although as I say, I’m aware that there are issues with Netshare and wireles, so that could be a red herring…
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