Well - as the instigator of this thread, I have a quick update for you all.

My Asus Vista upgrade DVD arrived this morning.

I did a clean install, removing all other partitions.

I installed the new Asus drivers from the supplied CD.

Sat in work, when previously I couldn't get (or hold) a WiFi signal to a distant hotspot, it now works perfectly.

It is definitely NOT a hardware issue. Drivers alone have fixed my problem.

I will try at home, where I also had dropouts even in the same room as an AP, and in the next room to my Router - but I'm expecting miracles now...

I'm very happy. Vista looks good on the screen, and the one (major) issue I was having with the hardware has also been resolved.

I also making clean install. Wifi now OK. Only problem I get is webca, it's not working with clean install at all.
Working only uninstall->reboot->install->use camera. After reboot webcam again not working.

Hi landu,

See this - it was the only way to get the camera working on Vista for me, the Asus drivers didn't work. I'll try them again when I get the upgrade DVD and I will raise a technical query with them.

http://dandar3.blogspot.com/2007/03/asus-r2h-working-bison-webcam-on-vista.html

HTH,
Dan

I check again later with MSI driver. Strange with Vista Ultimate trial I get webcam to work only adding registry settings to Asus bisoncam driver. Now registry settings are correct (same) with Asus driver, but not working.

I did a clean install on the second partition. Wireless was fine, until I installed ATK_DRV. Now, CPU usage shoots though the roof, and wifi is gone from Device Manger more than it's present.  When wifi shows up, the minute I load Firefox (high CPU demand), it pops out.  I don't have this problem in XP. I've taken to using a Hawking USB stick or my cell phone over Bluetooth; I used to hate that stick, but now I love it, especially since the LAN card also won't cooperate. This is the second time I've loaded Vista; I nuked the drive a few weeks ago when I sent the R2H in for unrelated repair. Since it has to go back (audio isn't working), I anticipate being able to give it another go early next week, provided I ship the R2H tomorrow. Yeah, they were that fast.

Now camera working OK, only slow for video.
About connections.
There was Net4switch utility in upgrade DVD. With this utility your can make different profiles (home, work, wired LAN, wireless LAN etc.), good idea. Only problem is, this utility is in alpha or beta stage (as some other Asus drivers). Sometimes not found profile, sometimes logging on minutes etc.

I have also experienced weak WIFI signal on my AUS R2H, but yesterday I noticed that I have better signal strength outside my apartment  then inside it. So I did a little testing and I noticed  that I got better signal strength in places that are in front  and behind the router then from the side. Because of the router placing and apartment shape this meant that I was getting better  strength outside the apartment  then inside it. Then I moved my router for 90 degrees and now I’m getting excellent  strength in places that I got poor strength before. Did anyone also noticed this symptoms? Is this caused by the router or R2H WiFi card?

Folks, I just wanted to let you know that the KB927891 hotfix did it for me, too. There is even a brand new version of it available (05/07/07). Thanks a lot for the hint.

Cheers,
Oliver

Thanks for the fix, Oliver - although I don't have this issue anymore on my R2H since I reverted back to Windows Update rather than using Microsoft Update, I think it fixed it on my work laptop where I had svchost.exe hanging at 100%. After aplying the fix it still goes 100% for a short while, but it eventually comes back after a while.

Thanks,
Dan

Hi!

I've recently got my R2H and I'm quite happy with it ... except of the very annoying WiFi issue which has been described here. Thanks to all the tips and hints here I've managed to get a slightly more reliable connection but still the connections drops from time to time.

After doing some tests, I'm quite sure that the connection drops a few seconds after the CPU load went to 100% (by doing some rendering and burn-in tasks). So I guess the WiFi driver (or some companion tool/service) dies if it doesn't get enough CPU time ...

Has anyone managed to get the Vista driver working under XP?

chris

Hi Chris,

I noticed the same thing on high CPU usage, although in my case has two outcomes, either it disconnects and connects back (I've assigned a manual IP so it connects back quicker) or if you hover the wireless connection icon I can see the the connection gone down to 1 Mbps or saying No signal.

It doesn't seem to be an issue specific to R2H, someone was complaining of the TabletKiosk as well, so it may be somewhere between the USB design/drivers, Wireless driver and Windows Wireless Zero manager.

dan

Hi Dan!

Yes, I've seen the same behaviour. The connection speed drops to lower rates extremely fast. I mean, if I stand right next to my AP, Windows says "Excellent" quality ... and then (surprise, surprise) the connection doesn't drop, even at high CPU load!

As soon as I move a few steps away from the AP, connection speed immediately drops to 36/18/1 MBit/s and the link dies as soon as I stress the CPU a little bit (browsing Flash sites or running Windows Update is sufficient).

Thanks to your tips, I've managed to reduce the overall CPU load by upgrading the Intel drivers but this, of course, doesn't fix the main problem.

Asus just told me to do a "complete reinstall of the entire system" :-( Very funny.

People here said that the Vista driver doesn't show this effect and I've also heard people saying that the Linux driver is also stable. Perhaps one could try to modify the Vista driver to run under XP?!

Or we could try to grab a new driver. On the sourceforge page for the Linux driver project (ZD1211) is a list of other vendors selling products with the same ZyDAS chip. For the moment I'm trying all of them ;-)

.chris

Hi Chris,

 

that's exactly my experience. If you read the wireless post comments, we've tried some Zydas drivers with mixed results. I was hoping that Asus under flak from users would come up with a new driver to fix the problem, but since with the free upgrade to Vista I think is very unlikely they will do anything on XP. One other option would be to find another laptop manufacturer using ZD1211B devices and use their driver. Somehow I tend to think the problem is due to a driver issue as well related to internal power control management.

 

Dan

Hi Dan!

Ok, I've tried a few things and now I've got a wifi connection which is a little bit better (slightly better signal strength, fewer connection losses and higher compatibility with some APs). While searching the web for alternative drivers I've found a file called "zydas_vista_compat" or similar. It's a single file installer which might be found here (not sure if it's the same I used).

As always, you need to modify the zd1211bu.inf file and include the corrent vendor ID / device ID for our R2H wifi chip. After installing the driver and the wifi tool (make sure that no parts of other wifi drivers are left on your system) you need to edit one of the .ini-files inside the installation directory. One of them contains a list of vendor / device IDs ... just add the R2H's one to this list and restart the wifi utility.

The advantages of this solution are:

- Wifi config (including WPA / WPA2) without using Windows Zero Config tool
- detailed connection statistics
- ability to choose a TX rate between 1 and 54Mbps
- higher level of compatibility with some Atheros based APs

Everything else remains the same. The ASUS tools for switching WLAN on/off are still working flawlessly.

Sadly these drivers still disconnect when the CPU is under heavy load (but now I've been able to use Microsoft Update wirelessly) but it's getting better. The reception quality is also still very bad, compared to other systems.

I totally agree to Dan: The problem is software related. Luckily the ZD1211 drivers have been successfully ported to Linux (and work fine there) so that there might be a little chance that someone is able to "port them back" the Windows XP ?!

chris

Hi Chris,

I found this one (ftp://ftp.a-link.com/wl54usb/v6.19.0.0/), seems to be a driver version 6.19 (I currently use the standard one version 6.4.6.8), going to give it a shot...

Dan