Hello!

I have very annoying problem (is there any other kind?) with wireless connection.

I use HP550 notebook with Fedora 10 and adsl connection with Thomson Speedtouch ST780 WL modem. The problem is quite inconsistent (which makes it even more annoying). On good days I connect straight away and the connection is stable. On not so good days my computer freezes after some time (0 seconds to few minutes). Once that happens the only thing I can do (as far as I know) is to switch it off manually. This does not solve the problem though, I keeps freezing when I try again.
This problem never happened when I connected to any other wireless network.

Does anybody have any idea what causes this problem and how to fix it?
I realize there are tons of posts regarding problems with Internet connections so I apologize if this question already appeared.

Thank you in advance!
Best wishes for the New year!

The fact that it works some of the time leads me to believe this is probably not a configuration problem.

The set-up manual has a Trouble-shooting section. It describes the lights on the modem and what they mean. Have you used this section at the time of failure to try and figure out what is causing the problem?

Your ISP should be able to help here also. Most of them have online support, as well as phone support.

Things to verify, at the time of failure, run the commands 'iwconfig' and 'ifconfig' to verify your wireless configuration. If it is the same as when it works, that should be good. If not, that may be a clew as to what to look at.

Your phone line could be the problem also, could be bad connection. I like all the connectors to be tight, and to snap in. Have a look at the connections you can get at.

Hope this get you going in the correct direction.

Have you got another OS to troubleshoot with as well? It may help to try isolate the problem my using a friend's Windows computer, or your own. Just to see if it's a configuration issue.

Or can you plug in via ethernet instead, just to see if it may be some of the wireless configurations and not the provider? (If it's not a wireless-anywhere slide-in card)

Bok,i ja sam iz Rijeke.
Since I think that we got the same ISP,and OP I need your confirmation about this,if it's T-com,then I belive that we got a problem with them when wireless connection is an issue.
I've been trying to configure wireless for two hours and I've succeded,but after two days it stoped working.My wlan0 is present in iwconfig and ipconfig,the correct driver is installed,but it just stoped working after two days.I haven't yet called "our" ISP but if you know just a little about them you'll know when it comes to Linux they are very sceptic,because "we might be hackers".To make things better I have the same router/modem as you and on the same laptop on Vista wireless works.

ISP's that support linux are few and far between. Linux will work perfectly if configured correctly. It has an industry standard TCP/IP stack. There are more servers running linux than any other OS. Don't let some unknowing tech ever tell you any different.

The reason to talk to the ISP is to find out how to set up your system to connect to their network. There are different methods to do it. What works with one ISP won't work with another. You need to know, is it PPPoE, or PPPoA, or some other method. Ask for addresses, such as DNS. Ask it the ISP assigns a fixed IP address, or they run a DHCP server. It can work either way. These questions are not OS specific.

camorri,
I was thinking only at my ISP.I know all about PPPoE and DNS and DHCP things,it's just that in my country there are still some sceptics when it comes to Linux,so I've thought that might be the issue,but after playing a little with Fedora today,there it was,I couldn't belive it-I was loading kernel in which my wireless driver wasn't built in,so logically I couldn't have wireless connection.So now connection works just like before and I will report if there are any changes.
I'm waiting for the OP to post some new info...

alan ri,

I posted that info more for the original poster, Teki. It is something I have seen too often. I know there are sceptics, I don't want to see people giving up on linux for the wrong reason.

I'm glad you understand that stuff...

thanks everybody for your help!

alan_ri, my ISP is T-Com. now i'm connected to the same router with the same laptop using same OS, only with wire and everything works. i don't have any other OS on this computer, but i have another computer using Windows XP which connects to the same router wireless. Also works.

a friend of mine has the same router, only using different ISP, but his away. i'll try connecting at his place probably tomorrow and see what happens.

the thing is that i'm very new to linux, so i don't know much, and my computer freezes when it connects and there's nothing i can do once that happens (not even switch to terminal mode).

could anyone tell me how to connect from terminal mode to see what happens?

thnx again!

I can't agree with you more.I'm glad that we understand eachother.

teki;
Since you are new to Linux,I guess you didn't try to install driver for your wireless network adapter.I will help you with that because at the moment I think that could solve your problem.It looks like it isn't ISP issue,but check anyway if things will work when you visit your friend.
For the start post the output of iwconfig and ifconfig -a from your terminal.

you're right, i didn't install any drivers (i guessed it was already included in Fedora).

here are outputs for iwconfig and ifconfig (please note that i disabled wireless connections using graphical mode so my computer doesn't connect automatically):

Ok,please post the output of lspci -v so that we can start fixing this.

here it is:

Looks like this is the driver you need.

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_...l#Centrino4965

Hope this helps.

Happy New year everybody!

I'm sorry to say that driver installation did not help.
I went to my friends and tried there. Two of them have the same router but different provider, and one has the same ISP but different router and modem. It works normally everywhere except here...
Actually it worked here for a while (few minutes) but again it froze...
I think I'm gonna try and call my ISP helpdesk - it should be an interesting experience ))