WG3526 w/Goldenorb drops connection frequently

[LilAkka]

I have a WG3526 running the latest firmware of Goldenorb and right now I am getting frequent disconnects. In the past month it was happening maybe once a day, which was before I updated the firmware. Yesterday I couldn't hold a connection for longer than 5 minutes. I updated the firmware but that didn't help. I'm using a T-mobile sim and I also have T-mobile for my phone and that seems to be working fine on it's own, so I know it's not T-mobile.

Having updated the firmware I assume this is a hardware issue. Though I'm not sure if it's the sim card (which I noticed doesn't come up with an associated number when sending the AT+CNUM command), the router, or my antennas. To be honest I've been running this setup for a little over a year, but I'm still a noob to troubleshooting these issues. The guy that supplied me the sim card has also been very helpful whenever I have trouble but I thought I would ask the fine people here to see what they think as well or can point me in the right direction.

*Edit: I have also heard the power supply can be an issue. Right now its got a 100/240v, 50/60hz, 12v 2.5A which I thought should be perfectly fine, but maybe not.

[Yipzy]

I would flash back to the old firmware to verify if newer firmware is actually the problem via this method https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5

[LilAkka]

I don't think the new firmware is the problem as I was having the issue before I updated. The update was an attempt fix the issue as I didn't realize new firmware had been released.

[LilAkka]

Forgot to mention I need to restart the router every time to be able to reconnect. It does not reconnect on its own.

[Yipzy]

Have you tried using the router's sim card in your phone and compare speed to your phone sim and see if everything is OK? Unless it's not a nano sim and you can't fit it into your phone's sim slot. What kind of modem is it? Your power adapter should be fine if it has been working for awhile.

[LilAkka]

I have not tried that. I've only compared the speeds while the sim is in the router.

[LilAkka]

The modem is MC7455

[Yipzy]

It seems to me like it's a sim card issue if suddenly you get frequent disconnections. Could you put your phone's T-Mobile sim in the router and see if it acts the same?

[LilAkka]

Yeah, I'll give that a shot. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but is there anything else I'll need to do, or can I just swap the sim cards?

[Yipzy]

I assume the router has TTL set to avoid hotspot detection? If so, just swap the sim cards and see. Also, you could enable connection monitor here (a modified version or use the default script) https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?t=121 to avoid frequently manual rebooting for the time being.

[LilAkka]

I enabled connection monitoring, I can't recall if the TTL is setup that way. How do I check that?

[Yipzy]

Network->Firewall->Custom Firewall
For T-Mobile I believe it's TTL 64

[LilAkka]

Ok, it's currently set to 65 actually.

[Yipzy]

I enabled connection monitoring, I can't recall if the TTL is setup that way. How do I check that?

Make sure you add tracking ip like 8.8.8.8 for the script to ping in the settings page.

Ok, it's currently set to 65 actually.

Then I would leave it as it is.

[LilAkka]

IP is 8.8.8.8 and I'll leave it at 65.

Tried the sim in my phone and got speeds better than my phone typically gets and certainly better than my router has ever had.

[Yipzy]

That's to be expected because your phone's modem is a lot better than the MC7455. Now put your phone's own sim into the router and see if you still get the disconnections if possible.

[LilAkka]

Alright, I'll do that. It might take a minute before it drops the connection.

[LilAkka]

So after about 15 minutes on my phones sim it didn't disconnect. I have put the other sim back in and it still hasn't disconnected which is an improvement from yesterday. But I'm still concerned it could start to happen again. Unless that connection monitoring has something to do with it?

[Yipzy]

You could check if there is a disconnection or not via Modem -> Connection Log.

[LilAkka]

Ok, it seems the only connections were when I swapped out the sims

[Viper67857]

Possibly the pings the connection monitor is doing is also keeping your connection alive and preventing the modem from going into low-power mode...?

[LilAkka]

Is that how that works? I honestly have no idea.

[LilAkka]

Still getting drops although not quite as frequent