Hi, I'm at wit's end trying to get the wireless to work on my new
Dell Vostro 1500 laptop.

I'm using Centos 5.1 which came with a 2.6.18-53 kernel, but I've
been trying with a rebuilt 2.6.24 kernel, which comes with the
iwlwifi driver. (It didn't work in the original kernel, either.)

The kernel seems to see the device and the device file has been
created, but I can't get the device to come up. Well, actually
I *did* get it up twice, but then I rebooted for and it wouldn't
come back. I can't figure out why. I've tried changing the wireless
router (I have a windows laptop that can talk to that router fine,
btw), I've played with the wireless switch, disabled the wireless
switch in bios, I compiled the kernel with "Sensitivity calibration in
lwifi drivers" and "Spectrum Measurement in lwifi drivers" enabled,
then with them disabled.

I have iwlwifi-3945-1.ucode in /lib/firmware. (When I take it out,
the kernel doesn't see the device at all).

In dmesg I see:
iwl3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
hda: ATAPI 24X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache
phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-3945-rs'

But when I try to bring the interface up with "ifup lwan0" I get
this in /var/adm/messages:

Apr 15 12:34:57 kimura kernel: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
Apr 15 12:34:57 kimura dhclient: wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
Apr 15 12:34:57 kimura dhclient: wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801

and dhcp ultimately fails.

To show that I read the "what to include post", here's the output of lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
03:01.1 Class 0805: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
03:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much,
Bruce

Are you trying to use DHCP?

Yes, I'm trying to use dhcp.

I get terrible problems with DHCP when I move from the location I originally set-up the WiFi. ie, at home, where I originally installed Mandriva and set my WiFi connection up, it works. Anywhere else I go, DHCP simply refuses to work. I've got the 4965, but apparently the devices are very similar and share many of the same faults.

I need to try ndiswrapper to see if that helps.

Did you include the IEEE80211 stuff in your kernel ???.

The interface works, it's purely the DHCP part of it that doesn't work when you take it away from the access point that is first used after install. AFAIK, it wouldn't work at all if the 802.11 stuff wasn't in!

Wow, it works without using dhcp. I feel kinda stupid for not having thought of that,
but I didn't imagine that dhcp was actually connected with the driver. Thanks very
much.

OK, now I have another strange problem. The wireless card seems to work without dhcp, but only if I bring up the ethernet interface first. What i mean is, that the following procedure does not work:

1) reboot

2) ifup wlan0

At this point, netstat -rn and so forth look fine but I cannot ping anything on my
local LAN

However, the following does work:

1) reboot

2) ifup eth1

3) ifdown eth1

4) ifup wlan0

Now everything is fine. Huh? can somebody please explain this to me

I am not finding anything that looks odd in dmesg, either.