wireless works at boot but soon disappears

Forum: Networking
Topic: wireless works at boot but soon disappears
started by: zanooi

Posted by zanooi on Dec. 29 2005,15:01

I have dsl hd-installed on an OLD Toshiba 315CDS with an orinoco silver Lucent wireless card. Initially I was very happy that everything just worked. But then I found if I came back to the laptop later I could no longer ping the gateway (AP). Nothing changed, the laptop is still within feet of the AP! I am at a loss as to how to troubleshoot this. I use other laptops with other OSes and other cards without problems ... so I have to debug this problem on this machine.
As I was collecting info to post this, my heart sank as the last entry in dmesg was
eth0: new link status:AP out of range (0004)
right after the network disappeared. I hate the message because the AP is still right there - feet away ... how do I debug this??!! What do I look at? I thought it maybe some IRQ conflict that only appears later, but this last time - there was nothing about IRQ conflict in dmesg.
Also - not everytime does it actually work at boot. Sometimes I boot it multiple times, sometimes I replug the card - since I don't know what to look for - I just screw around. I am a Unix SA (go figure) - but servers don't run on plug&play wireless cards - so my experience on this issue is squat!

Help.

Posted by doobit on Dec. 29 2005,15:54

Is it possible that the hardware is flakey? It may be the PCMCIA connector itself. One in my friend's fairly new laptop went south for the winter just recently.

Posted by zanooi on Dec. 29 2005,16:27

Quote (doobit @ Dec. 29 2005,10:54)

Is it possible that the hardware is flakey? It may be the PCMCIA connector itself. One in my friend's fairly new laptop went south for the winter just recently.

I would be quite happy to accept a hardware problem if I could just somehow verify that?? If it *is* the connector then a different card will not solve the problem. If I have the same problem with a different card - does that mean it *is* the connector?? If it is the connector will both slots be flaky the same way? So far I could not say one is more/less flaky than the other. I have used the wireless card in both and it seemed to be no better/worse - not that I was keeping meticulous track.

Posted by doobit on Dec. 29 2005,17:09

The damage in my friend's laptop was to both slots, so I don't know if you can have one damaged and not the other. If they are on the same bus, then the controller could be the damaged part and both would show the same problem. The way to verify would be to try the exact same configuration on another computer.

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 29 2005,21:00

Does the same problem happen when you use a different OS on the same machine, like maybe KNOPPIX or even MSWindows?

This could eliminate or highlight a hardware problem.

Also, there is a chance that some other 2.4Ghz device like a cordless phone or a neighbor's wireless AP could be interfering in certain situations. Just a shot in the dark.

Posted by zanooi on Dec. 29 2005,21:54

Quote (cbagger01 @ Dec. 29 2005,16:00)

I tried KNOPPIX but it (wireless) did not *just* work. In the light of this discussion I can try it again. I suppose I should boot more than once - given the flaky-ness. It's just so s-l-o-w loading (anything) off a live cd. Maybe I can try & shove & yank the card once KNOPPIX is up.

I took windoze off before I tried wireless on this ole laptop. I have an old win98 cd - does win98 even do wireless native off the CD - because I'm not exactly downloading drivers off the net via the wireless! The laptop only has 2 GIG hd so I doubt any newer win32 will fit. 2 gig use to be HUGE :laugh:

Posted by zanooi on Dec. 30 2005,13:51

Well I went home and put the Knoppix cd in and booted that with the card OUT. Then I plugged in the wireless card - and it worked fine. So I thought I'd put the knoppix on the hd and discovered to my *disgust* that 1.7 Gig is not enough room. What is the world coming to??? When even linux won't fit in less than 2 GIG. <rant>People we use to run entire systems on less than that!

</rant>
I left it pinging and at about 2:00am this morning networking stopped. But after one or two pokes around it was again pinging fine

Then for no good reason I rebooted the whole shebang - with the card in this time - which did not seem to be a a good idea, because when it came up again, it was it own flakey self (on knoppix) this time.
So at least you guys got me to try other OS's. I have Ubuntu (yeah South Africa) and some other live cd to try again. Seems the magic is to boot without the card and then plug it in once the OS is up. Not the way to run a server ... which is why it is so foreign to me, and not something I tried before. So the saga continues...

Posted by doobit on Dec. 30 2005,14:01

No, Windoze 98 does not do anything off the CD. The best you can do is boot with a DOS floppy with drivers. Win98SE fits in less than 300MB on a laptop.
The need for smallness is one of the reasons DSL exists, and it's very stable and fast once you set it up the way you want it. It boots up faster off the CD than Win98 does off a hard drive, and shuts down faster too. You can run the server right off the CD and just keep your data on a hard drive or other media, like a pen drive.
How much RAM do you have? I'm running DSL very well with a Toshiba 480CDT with 64MB RAM. There have been issues, but they've all been solved right here on the board.
Personally, I would not run a server with a wireless connection. There are too many reasons for it to go wrong. It's bad enough when it's wired.