wireless connection at home

[Les]

On Sat, 2008-04-19 at 19:11 -0600, Chris Kottaridis wrote:
> I have a Del Inspiron 1510 laptop running Fedora Core 8. I copied down
> the b43 driver for it and it does seem to get recognized OK. However,
> when I try to connect to an access point I can't seem to get it to
> connect. The iwconfig output always shows Link Quality: 0:
> 
> $ iwconfig wlan0
> wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"qwind-chrisk"  
>           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.447 GHz  Access Point:
> 00:0D:88:AC:A8:2C   
>           Tx-Power=27 dBm   
>           Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
>           Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
>           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
>           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
> 
> There was one time when I used the network manager to try and activate
> the card and it actually worked! The network manager counted it as
> successful and an ifconfig of the wlan0 showed that the card had sent 10
> packets and received 12. It had the ip address from the access point via
> dhcp. However, by the time I checked iwconfig to see the "Link Quality"
> it was 0 and nothing was getting transferred.
> 
> I went to a local computer store because I thought maybe the card was
> bad. When I got there I had no problem activating the card and picking
> up an IP address from their access point in the store. Also the "Link
> Quality" said 86/100. So, I don't think there is an underlying hardware
> problem.
> 
> So, I came back home and kept trying various combinations, setting a key
> on the access point, taking the key off, trying different channels,
> every possible thing I can think of. from looking at the iwconfig
> options and network manager options.  My wife's laptop and my 2 kid's
> laptops running Windows all connect up fine to the local access point.
> 
> In the environment here I have about 4 wireless access points in the
> house behind various firewalls and VPN's. They are all clustered
> together in the same place. The DSL modem has wireless capability, the
> cisco router that provides VPN to my office has wireless, I have a
> "LinkSys Wireless G" that is what my wife and kids connect up to, and I
> put back into service a "D-link DWL -2000AP" access point I have to try
> and test this so I wouldn't disrupt the wife and kids connectivity as I
> tried different combinations on the access point. I have never done any
> configuration on any of them except the "LinkSys Wireless G" that my
> family uses, (and in the last couple of days on the D-link I reactivated
> in order to try some testing). So, I don't know if they are causing
> confusion to the card or not. However, when this exact machine was
> running Windows it connected up to the "LinkSys" access point just fine
> in this environment. The other laptops running Windows in the house have
> no trouble connecting to either the LinkSys or the newly activated
> D-link.
> 
> So it seems like it works fine in other environments (at least at the
> computer store), but in my home it doesn't, but did for a short time
> work once at home long enough to DHCP down an IP address. I have been
> trying every combination I can think to try and still can't seem to get
> anything but a link Quality of 0.
> 
> Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks
> 
>     Chris Kottaridis    (chriskot at quietwind.net)
> 
Hi, Chris,
	This may be way off the mark, but since you said it worked at the
store, and since most stores use either Linksys or Cisco, I figure it
should work OK.  Therefore I need to ask: Some routers have a maximum
number of allowable addresses setup by the software, and some ISP's
limit the number of connections.  Could that be your problem?  Check
your provider agreement and your router information. Just a suggestion
based on what might be different.

Regards,
Les H