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Topic: wireless works at boot but soon disappears

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zanooi

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Joined: Dec. 2005

Posted: 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.

doobit

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Posted: 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.

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zanooi

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Posted: 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.

doobit

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Posted: 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.

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cbagger01

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Posted: 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.

7 replies since Dec. 29 2005,15:01

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