WLAN card gets signal but no IP Address

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roshan Qureshi
  • Start date Start date
R

Roshan Qureshi

I have an OEM Orinoco Mini-PCI WLAN card in a Windows 2000 notebook. It
finds the wireless router just fine (SSID is detected; signal is strong (5/5
bars); MAC address of router is detected; there is no security on the
router) but it does not acquire an IP address (yes, it is setup for DHCP).
Here's what I have tried and found:

.. swap cards with a known-good one: same problem.
.. Uninstall card driver & client mgmt. software. Download and install
latest driver/SW from vendor's web site: same problem.
.. Install latest driver/SW from Agere's (chipset maker) website: same
problem.
.. Install another (brand and model) WLAN card in PC Card slot: success!
.. Uninstall/reinstall TCP/IP (Microsoft KB Article 837333): same problem
.. For another, unrelated issue, swapped out the computer shell (everything
except HDD, WLAN card, optical drive, & battery) for a known-good one.
.. Give card a static address: same problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions short of doing a clean reinstall of Windows
(which I'm pretty sure will fix the problem since the hardware seems OK, but
will take a solid day to do)?

Thanks in advance,
roshan
 
You never give the name or model of the router. Have you checked their
website for updates and possibly compatibility problems with that type of
card?

Can you use a different brand router to test? Sometimes words or phrases
used in setting up the cards and/or routers are a little different and don't
always mean the exact same thing.

Clark
 
Hi

Seems that you did every thing right, might be the card is functional any more.

Since new PCMCIA cards can be found these days for $10 there is no need to “Break you

Heart” because of a piece of plastic. ;) ;)

Jack (MVP-Networking).
 
The router is a Linksys WRT54G. The card, as I mentioned, is an OEM ORiNOCO
Mini-PCI (chipset by Agere). This machine/card has failed acquire an IP
Address (DHCP or static) on multiple routers of different brands & models,
though it always picks up the SSID, channel, &c. This same card, when
installed in another PC of the same model, works fine with this router.

As for words/phrases being different in various client managers, that is a
pet peeve of mine. Since this card detects the router's channel, SSID, and
MAC correctly, I believe that all the wireless-specific settings are
correct.

I suspect that the issue at hand is not specific to wireless networking, but
some other Ethernet/TCP/I-don't-know-what setting for this connectoid on
this machine. Does anyone know how to delete a connectoid and all its
settings (files, registry entries, &c.)? Any other ideas?

thanks,
roshan
 
Thanks, Jack. The card is good; I put it in another machine of the same
model/OS and it works. It's something with this card in this machine . . .

rq
 
I have. I experienced this problem when I was running SP3, but I found a
patch (presumably addressing this issue) on the computer vendor's web site
that fixed it. Later, I upgraded to SP4 and the card still worked. [I
don't know if I mentioned this before, but it should now be clear that the
card has worked in the past.]

thanks,
roshan
 
Interesting! I'll try that when the user returns from his current trip &
let you know. Thanks again for all the help and research!

roshan
 
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