Connection Problems?
 

I have an HP dv6700 with Atheros ar5007 built in wireless. I configured the right drivers with ndiswrapper about a month ago and when I can connect to the Internet everything works fine. Here is the problem: I have a wireless router spreading the connection in my house (its a small ranch). Even at the farthest point in the house from the router my signal displays at about 60% in Ubuntu Hardy 8.04. But most of the time it will NOT connect. Even if I sit with the laptop almost on top of the router it'll connect only half the time. This becomes annoying because I have to try and try again for it to connect and the only thing that changes its probability of connecting is restarting the laptop numerous times.

Anyone know what the issue is. Would a different network manager possibly help, I see there is many different choices for Linux.

In light of it being an Atheros card, have you tried using madwifi?

The only solution for my card is with ndiswrapper and it works perfectly. It's just like my router isn't accepting the laptop to connect. Wireless is working, I can see my network and it's signal strength.

I apologize and I don't mean to sound facetious, but I've only ever heard of people being able to get proper functionality from their Atheros-based cards from using madwifi.

The only reason I bring it up, is because I had a similar issue with my Broadcom-based card (except ndiswrapper was my solution, and I experienced the same problem as you with the b43 and the [deprecated] bcm43xx drivers - I could see the network and get details, just not connect).

If you're positively certain that this is not a driver issue, then it's a matter with the router configuration. Take your laptop to another WiFi access point, and see if you have the same issue connecting to them. If the problem persists it's either your drivers, or a faulty wireless card (regardless of the computer's age, it happens).

If you have another computer with wireless capabilities, and it's experiencing the same issue with your router, then it's a router issue.

EDIT: You also mentioned a network manager - which one are you currently using? Does using the command line tools "iwconfig" and your DHCP client (dhclient or dhcpcd) yield anything different in being able to establish a connection? As for different network managers, there's NetworkManager and Wicd to name two.

My laptop does connect to the router just only about half of the time, and when it does connect the Internet works perfect, very fast I might add too as compared to when I used vista. And at the moment I'm using the default manager for Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy which I believe is just dubbed "NetworkManager".

Okay. If you boot into Vista, does the same problem persist?

And do you have a secondary computer to try this out on (via wireless) - this is to test the router and/or the wireless card in your laptop in question.

I do not have any other OS on my laptop, I've had Ubuntu for a few months now and this whole problem came on gradually it seems. Also I don't have any other computers that connect to the network via wireless.