recent wireless woes

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Q

q20

i have set up a network here at work, where we have 6 wireless enabled
computers (all xp pro) connecting to a wireless network consisting of a
broadband router (internet and dhcp) and two access points (all linksys).

from the outset all computers were able to browse the network perfectly, but
recently 3 of them are having problems: they are able to find the nearest
access point and connect to it (i've given each access point a unique SSID,
so i know which point each laptop is connecting to), but are not being
assigned an ip address by the dhcp router. even if i specify a valid ip
address on the right subnet i get no joy. but if i connect the laptops to
the network over a normal utp cable, an ip address is assigned and the
network works as designed. hence, the router/dhcp is not at fault.

what could be at fault? both access points and the router have the latest
firmware installed, and all laptops have all the latest patches etc
installed (except 815485, if i remember the name correctly, but you know
which one i'm referring to).

i've tried connecting the other laptops that are working fine to all access
points, and they do so just fine, so i know that none of the access points
are faulty. i really do not know what's going on here...

any suggestions would be simply fantastic.

thanks in advance
q20
 
q20:

Reading through your notes, is it possible that you are using encryption but
the keys don't match on some? That's the first thing I would check and or
reset. Your machines (laptops) are all XP and I assume all of the WiFi
hardware is Linksys including the NICs. A mismatch of keys would certainly
cause this problem.

On some NICs and WiFi software, if using encryption, you might need to
manually re-enable the encryption again on machine restart or after
recovering from hibernation or stand-by.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Simon.
 
q20 said:
i have set up a network here at work, where we have 6 wireless enabled
computers (all xp pro) connecting to a wireless network consisting of a
broadband router (internet and dhcp) and two access points (all linksys).

from the outset all computers were able to browse the network perfectly, but
recently 3 of them are having problems: they are able to find the nearest
access point and connect to it (i've given each access point a unique SSID,
so i know which point each laptop is connecting to), but are not being
assigned an ip address by the dhcp router. even if i specify a valid ip
address on the right subnet i get no joy. but if i connect the laptops to
the network over a normal utp cable, an ip address is assigned and the
network works as designed. hence, the router/dhcp is not at fault.

what could be at fault? both access points and the router have the latest
firmware installed, and all laptops have all the latest patches etc
installed (except 815485, if i remember the name correctly, but you know
which one i'm referring to).

i've tried connecting the other laptops that are working fine to all access
points, and they do so just fine, so i know that none of the access points
are faulty. i really do not know what's going on here...

any suggestions would be simply fantastic.

thanks in advance
q20
Click to expand...

I've been having similar problems on and off for the last few months
as well - thought I'd got it fixed when i removed 815485, but it's
returned to haunt me this last few days.

Disappointing that nobody can think of a fix for it, cause I'm sick of
seeing "invalid IP address" 0.0.0.0 and "automatic IP address"
169.x.x.x coming up every time I ought to have 192.168.0.x

Also, I've trying uninstalling and reinstalling all the drivers on
both machines (the one I've got working and the one I haven't) and
it's not made a blind bit of difference.

regards,
Malaclypse
 
what brands, models, firmware and driver versions and what operating
systems? all XP?
 
hi barb

here are the specs

3x acer travelmate c100's: orrinoco wifi nic's (can't get access to the
laptops now to check driver version, but could do that later - i know
they're the latest), xp tablet edition... 2 of these are having problems

3x acer travelmate 800's: intel pro 2100 nic's (driver 1.0.28.2), xp pro
sp1... only 1 of these is having problems

2x linksys WAP54G access points: firmware 1.06 (18 Feb 2003)

1 linksys WRT54G wireless router: firmware 1.30.7 (Jul 8 2003)

i also remembered this morning that i forgot to mention something that may
be of some importance - these same laptops are the only ones that have
accessed wireless networks outside of our company... and are STILL able to
do so. so there's no problem as such with the hardware on any of these
laptops.

regarding the suggestion to check my WEP settings, that has been done...
yesterday i tried removing and adding all wireless networks again. no joy.

thanks for all your suggestions though. really appreciate it. any further
advice would be great.

cheers.
 
So are you using the WAP54G's as repeaters ( or WDS) or trying to? Are they
attached to the WRT54G by hardwire?
Can you describe how these SSID's are configured? Also, if you bring all the
laptops within range of the WRT54G can they all connect?
 
not too sure what you mean by WDS... sorry...

all the wireless points (router and 2 access points) are hardwired together
on our existing network that connects our older pcs.

the SSID's are companyname1, companyname2, companyname3, where 1 is the
router, and each access point goes up by 1 as it gets further away. i
initially had them all set up with the same SSID, but then i could never
tell which point the laptops were connecting to. which is better practice,
btw?

yes, all the laptops are able to connect to the WRT54G. but the problematic
pcs are still unable to browse the network nor are they assigned IP
addresses... last time i checked. i can check again in a few hours.

btw, new firmware (1.08) has just been released for my access points, but is
not yet available on the linksys ftp site. when it is i'll upgrade and let
you know if it makes any difference.

thx
 
For "roaming" (provided your hardware supports it) you would use the same
SSID and different channels. In your case, I'd use channels 1,6 and 11.
 
Barb Bowman said:
what brands, models, firmware and driver versions and what operating
systems? all XP?
Click to expand...

Okay, I've got a Pc running Windows XP Home, with a Mercury USB
wireless LAN adapter (www.kobian.com) and with driver 2.5.5.147. I
*think* the model is a WL450-A but I could be wrong there.
I've got a laptop running Windows XP pro with the PCMCIA version of
the same card.
My particular setup was running in ad-hoc mode, and I'm pretty sure
all my settings on the Available networks page were Ok.

They were running perfectly at 13-digit encryption until I installed
815485.
I uninstalled that, and they seemed happy to work with 5-digit only.

Now they do not work with either 5-digit or No WEP encryption at all
The PC is a fixed 192.168.0.1, as ICS is enabled

When I inserted the PCMCIA card into the notebook when it was working,
I used to get "Invalid IP address 0.0.0.0" in the 'properties ->
support' section, which would quickly change to "assigned by DHCP
192.168.0.x"
Now it waits much longer before giving me an automatically assigned IP
in the 169.x.x.x range.

I've tried ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew, and they don't seem
to work.
I've been into 'Services' and restarted the DHCP client on both
machines.

The only way I can change the 169.x.x.x to anything else is to either
disable or remove the card, and restart it that way.


I've tried it with static IP on the laptop as well, but I still can't
ping either pc from the other.

However, the wireless LAN properties thing has the signal strength
which varies as I move the laptop closer or further away, so I'm
pretty sure it's not hardware
Again, since I had the same problem before I got rid of update 815485
I really doubt it's hardware related


I've removed and reinstalled the devices, and turned the ICS off and
back on again, and it still isn't working - I'm kind of at a loss.

Regards

Malaclypse
 
barb... i've found the problem, or so it seems. some of my users had
installed the 815485 patch without my knowing (they are allowed to use
windowsupdate as they spend so much time abroad it is impossible to maintain
an up-to-date system if i am required to install each and every update).
after uninstalling said patch, then removing the wifi driver and having
windows re-install it on reboot, things seem to be going ok. just the one pc
so far. will try one of the others later.

i have done as you suggested and changed all the SSID's to one, common one,
and set the channels as instructed and it works beautifully.

i thank you for your time and effort. it's greatly appreciated.
regards
q20
 
You seem to be saying that things WERE working ok even after you installed
815485. What changed? What is your firewall configuration? On the client
machine? On the host? Is ICF enabled on the client?
 
Barb Bowman said:
You seem to be saying that things WERE working ok even after you installed
815485. What changed? What is your firewall configuration? On the client
machine? On the host? Is ICF enabled on the client?
Click to expand...

Thanks Barb,

Sorry If I made myself unclear. Things were working OK before I
installed 815484. I uninstalled it from both machines, and it resumed
working, although it wouldn't accept 13-digit WEP codes anymore - no
big problem.

I have no idea WHAT changed, but I started getting the same (or at
least very similar) problems a few days ago.


Both of the machines are on a peer-to-peer ad-hoc wi-fi link.
ICF is enabled on the shared net connection, but on none of the
ethernet connections.
On the PC I have Norton Personal Firewall and on the laptop Zonealarm
(the free one). I've shut down both of these firewalls!


regards,

Malaclypse
 
can you try two things
1. run msconfig and take the firewalls out of the startup group (just for
diagnostics)
2. can you unbridge the connections (remove ICS) on the machine connected to
the internet

after doing that, try to get your ad hoc connection working properly. set it
up from scratch on both machines. does this work?
if it works, enable first one firewall and then the other ? still work or
broken?
then if everything works, re-enable the bridge/ICS
 
Thanks for that Barb..

I'll try and take you through this as logically and clearly as I can,
but the gist is this:

It's working now. I'm not too sure how, and I'm slightly concerned
about its stability, but working.



1. I did as suggested and disabled both firewalls. I removed all
bridging and ICS, and changed the SSID names etc.

2. re-enabled wi-fi and set up the adhoc network.
Doesn't work.

3. insert static IP address. Does work.

4. insert 'get automatically'. Doesn't work.

5. Reset to static, and enter the Gateway as the IP of internet
hosting machine. Re-enable the ICS on the gateway machine.

6. Have complete access to the network and can control the
(connect/disconnect) of the internet. However, as it is set to static
IP on the laptop, cannot actually *browse* the net.

7. re-enabled both firewalls (incrementally). Same situation as 6.
applies.

8. In last ditch effort, selected 'find IP automatically'.

9. TCP/ip protocol then comes up reading "Assigned by DHCP," with the
same IP information i'd enetered in 5.

10. Everything works... it's almost as if it "remembered" where the
DHCP was from when it was working as a static IP machine.... whatever
it was that fixed it, it seems a bit cookie and not quite right.
Just a bit afraid it'll happen again, but at least i'm kinda prepared
for that!



Thanks for all your effort anyway!


Malaclypse.
 
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