Broadcom Wireless Card Problem

[augusto_d_ria]

In the company that I work, we have a lot of Lenovo E430 laptops with Broadcom Wireless cards (according to AIDA64, the model is BCM4313GN). A lot of times during the day, we experience disconnects and, some times, the laptops stops connecting back to the WLAN.
We have ZD3000 with 25 APs (ZoneFlex 7372) currently running firmware 9.7.2.0 build 9.
Is there any solution to this issue yet? Couldn't find any here in the forums.

Thanks in advance!

[michael_brado]

If two laptop users are in the same area, on the same AP, and one is working fine but the other is having
problems, I'd look to update client radio driver/supplicant.  If all users in an area experience problems at
the same time, I'd investigate that AP logs for recent RF events (DFS?) or high Athstats indicating there
was high interference or a spike at the AP.

Your 7372 model APs are supported on ZD3000 running up to current 9.13.3 (MR3) release firmware.
There have been many updates since version 9.7.2 (MR2) that you are currently running, if you wanted
to plan a change management period to update your controller/APs.

[augusto_d_ria]

Thanks for the quick response!

The Wireless drivers are up to date (last version available at the Lenovo website) and the problem occurrence is random, the laptop is connected to the WLAN and simply disconnects and doesn't connect back. The point is, it only happens with the laptops using the Broadcom cards. We have several other laptops here that use Realtek or Atheros cards, for example, and the same thing doesn't happen, they work just fine and we never had an issue.

Regarding the firmware update, I'll consider doing it. But we have been having the same problem with the Broadcom cards in previous versions too.

Is there anything in the WLAN configurations that I can change that could be causing the issue?

[monnat_systems]

hi
i know of an issue with respect to Lenevo laptops and not sure if they are broadcom based chipset laptops and linked to the problem you mentioned above..
it seems that Lenevo laptops WNIC cant scan beyond 1-11 channel so if AP is running on channel 12 or 13 or 14. Laptops can't see the SSID hence can;t connect.
this may look like intermittent problem if AP's are on channelfly as they keep hopping channel and all work ok as long they work between 1-11 and problem arises when AP selects 12 or 13 or 14 channel..
1) my fix was to manually deselect ch 12, 13 and 14 from AP group so that channel selection by AP remains between 1-11
2) lately, i have noticed that new driver has the option to selecting 802.11d which allows that WLAN NIC to scan on all channels incld 12,13 and 14...