WiFi: why not a diagram showing access points?

[Timothy Murphy]

I'm having terrible problems with my modem/router at the moment.
The WiFi connection on my Thinkpad laptop drops every 10 minutes or so.
I have to restart the network service to get the connection back.

I'm not sure what exactly wakes the modem/router up when I do this?
I presume some packet my WiFi driver sends has this effect?

I haven't found anything similar with NetworkManager;
when I restart the NetworkManager service it just says it is re-starting,
but I'm still not connected.

Windows XP is even worse, as the same thing happens there
and I don't know of any way to re-start the network.

At least, there is a way with Lenovo's ThinkVantage tools,
which offer a crude map showing visible access points;
and if you click on an access point it tries to connect to that.

This seems a great idea to me.
Under Fedora, "iwlist scan" lists the access points that are within range;
surely it wouldn't take a guru much time to convert this into a map,
and add an option to click on an access point to connect to it?

I'm not sure, incidentally, what the position of the AP on the map conveys.
The nearer points correspond to stronger signals, I think,
but I don't know if the position on the circle of that diameter means,
if anything.

The wireless device on my present Thinkpad T60 laptop is
Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, with the iwl3945 driver.

If anyone can throw any light on my problem, I would be eternally grateful.
I assumed the problem was in the outside line to the modem,
but my ISP assures me the line is perfect.

I tried using another modem (Billion), but it needs a password
and the password my ISP sent me does not seem to work.
(It is their modem.)


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland