Cisco Aironet 350 PCMCIA setup problemsForum: Networking Topic: Cisco Aironet 350 PCMCIA setup problems started by: steford Posted by steford on Feb. 26 2006,00:03
According to the Wiki this card should work with little config but not for me although I'm convinced I'm pretty close.The card is detected fine on boot and running netcardconfig seems to fire the card up - green status light is on and slight interference to speakers suggesting activity. However I can ping nothing at all. ifconfig -a shows the eth0 interace itself and wifi0 as I believe this card does. Using the tool all parameters seem fine but no connection. Wlanconig prings up the 2 interfaces - setting the same parameters for each doesn't help. Anything obvious I'm doing wrong? Should I be using netcardconfig or wlanconfig or both? If I do things manually should I be using ifconfig or iwconfig? Thanks for any help. Posted by dare2dreamer on Feb. 26 2006,01:24
I use this card daily without issues. I program it via iwconfig commands.I do have some small recollection about versions of firmware being an issue with this card. When I plugged it into a windows box, the driver under windows flashed the card's firmware to a more recent but linux-buggy version. It took me a while to realize that this was happening, but I finally figured it out, flashed the card to a compatible version and slapped a "linux only" sticker on it. Hope this helps. The aironet is a fantastic card, with one of the most powerful antennas I've ever seen on a laptop wireless card. It's my "coffee shop card" of choice. Posted by steford on Feb. 26 2006,11:47
Thanks for that. I've read about the firmware issues and do remember upgrading it some time ago on a windows box. Any chance you can post your full settings for eth0 and wif0 and the exact procedure I need to go through in DSL (netcard config then iwconfig? iwconfig only etc) before I try the reflash.I have DHCP switched off in boot options for static IP and WEP encryption. Thanks again. Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 27 2006,05:45
Don't forget to include the DSL version number that you are using.
Posted by dare2dreamer on Feb. 27 2006,05:49
No problem.Here's what I'm using to connect to my 802.11b WEP'ed AP, sans my keycodes, essid, etc: sudo iwconfig eth0 essid "youressid" key s:key1 [1] key s:key2 [2] key s:key3 [3] key s:key4 [4] mode managed ap APMACADDRESSHERE commit And then a: sudo pump Should get you an ip address. As I recall, most ap setups don't actually require all four keys to be specified. If that's the case with yours, just set the first key s:ASCIIKEY (or key HEXKEY) and leave off the bracketed numbers. As a guess, it's probably the "commit" command that is tripping you up. A handful of cards require it, and the rest toss errors at you about it. Posted by steford on Feb. 27 2006,23:26
Thanks mate. Still no go. Going to reflash at work tomorrow. DSL version is 2.2b by the way.
Posted by steford on Mar. 04 2006,22:41
OK now have the last v4 firmware on the card but ... still no connection. I've tried everything now with this card.Putting it into another old laptop and booting from CD works fine using netcardconfig so I'm now putting it down to the laptop hardware. Noticed a thread elsewhere about IRQ channels and sure enough I havea COM port asl oon IRQ3 - same as the Cisco card. Disabled this in BIOS but still no go on the card. My other suspicion is the route table - which shows 192.168.0.1 * as the only entry (I use 192.168.1.1) as my gateway. Manually adding this though doesn't help and I can't ping 192.168.1.1 at all anyway. I can't delete the 192.168.0.1 line - although not sure how helpful that would be. Everything else looks fine - with the correct eth0 and wifi0 appearing with all the correct values and set up in the same way as my other laptop. A wired PCMCIA card works fine on the machine so DNS and routing would seem to be OK. Any final suggestions before I give up on this machine which I've wasted way too much time on already? Thanks. Posted by dare2dreamer on Mar. 05 2006,19:46
As I recall, there was a specific firmware version that was "more linux friendly"Does anyone know how to get the card to cough up it's current firmware version under linux? I'd be happy to look mine up for you if I knew how. R Posted by steford on Mar. 13 2006,21:41
Current firmware version can be found in /proc/driver/aironet/ethX/Status where ethX is the interface assigned to your card
Posted by dare2dreamer on Mar. 22 2006,06:22
Here ya go:
Posted by steford on April 02 2006,12:06
Thanks. Now on to DSL2.3 but still no luck getting this card to work. I can hear via speaker interference and see via activity light that the card is working and transmitting. I still, however, can't ping anything. My wireless router shows the card as an active client. I have switched off serial posrts and devices that might cause an IRQ clash but nothing has worked. All setup files, if/iwconfig, boot time messages and cisco files look normal and correct. Any final thoughts before I give up on this old laptop?
Posted by dare2dreamer on April 03 2006,21:45
If you do an iwconfig/ifconfig, do you actually see an interface? It seems to me that all of this hardware, assuming it is functioning, is bog-standard linux-friendly stuff. Perhaps something else is going wrong...does the card work in another machine? the machine with another card?Don't give up on it just yet. You've got a great card in your hand. Hell, I'd covet another one for my gf's laptop. |