Network stopped working

enemorales · 08-20-2005, 07:51 AM

Hi,

I've a ipw2100 wireless card and anything was going fine. I have used it for many months without any problem. Then, one day, the dhclient couldn't get an IP from my router. The system boot hanged, so I have to press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart my computer. I rebooted and anything went fine.

The problem, however, started to happen more and more often. "my wireless card needs to be warm to work", I thought, because always in the second boot it worked. Until yesterday night. I tryied time after time without any success. No more wireless network for me. So I decided that it was time to update some drivers (I was using an old version of the wireless drivers for Linux, because they were working fine). At this time I was wired to the Internet, but even that connection had some problems. I couldn't make it work and I started to change more and more things until ... I broke my system. I updated so many packages that didn't understand anymore where my conf files were now (I'm a Gentoo user). Ok. "Time for a new beginning, I thought".

I decided it was time to take a look on Ubuntu. The setup application recognized my wireless card, but it was unable to connect to the router. I installed and got wired internet access, but no wireless. Debian installer can't get IP, not even with the ethernet card. Same for my Gentoo CD, the same I used to install the original system!.

I don't think it is the hardware, because anything works fine under Windows, which is what I'm using to post this message.

What could be wrong?? Any idea would be appreciated. I tried disabling IPv6 on Ubuntu, but that didn't work.

Thank you in advance...

trickykid · 08-20-2005, 09:57 AM

So any other information like ifconfig or iwconfig outputs help. The type of drivers your using, type of router, etc? Have you tried setting up a static route instead of using DHCP for your connection to your router?

enemorales · 08-22-2005, 02:35 AM

Hi, sorry for the delay. Without internet its difficult to post (just don't like to boot Windows).

Code:

# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"DW-B-200-4321a"  Nickname:"ipw2100"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:90:4B:84:94:AF
          Bit Rate=11 Mb/s   Tx-Power=32 dBm
          Retry:on   RTS thr=2304 B   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=80/100  Signal level=-78 dBm  Noise level=-98 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:153   Missed beacon:0

#ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0B:DB:A6:8F:3A
          inet6 addr: fe80::20b:dbff:fea6:8f3a/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:11

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:04:23:4A:96:11
          inet addr:192.168.1.11  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::204:23ff:fe4a:9611/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:10187 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:16793 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:8563042 (8.1 MiB)  TX bytes:1897253 (1.8 MiB)
          Interrupt:7 Base address:0xf000 Memory:fafef000-fafeffff

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:390 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:390 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:109738 (107.1 KiB)  TX bytes:109738 (107.1 KiB)

I'm with Debian sarge and things work, for a couple of minutes. Then I lose my connection. I'm not sure, but it is possible that the problem started because now there is another wireless network in the neighborhood and possibly my linux is trying to connect to that access point. I restricted the AP to my router, but anyway after some minutes the connection is lost. If run dhclient again, it fails to get a new IP, unless I run iwlist scan first :-/. Any ideas will be very appreciated.

Thank you a lot in advance!

enemorales · 08-22-2005, 03:59 AM

Now I changed the channel and the connection lasts longer, but still is lost. Actually, I don't need to run the dhclient to restore the connection. It is enough to run iwlist eth1 scan.

I don't have a clue about what is going on.

peter_robb · 08-22-2005, 09:13 AM

Moved: This thread is more suitable in the Wireless Forum and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

enemorales · 08-24-2005, 05:01 AM

From iwconfig manual:

Quote:

ap
Register to the Access Point given by the address, if it is possible. When the quality of the connection goes too low, the driver may revert back to automatic mode. Example : iwconfig eth0 ap 00:60:1D:01:23:45

Does it mean that if the quality of the signal of the other access points is better than mine then it will try to connect them, even if I provide an specific AP? Do you know if there is a way to really force it to connect to a specific AP, and no other one? I have heard of "blacklists", for instance, but I don't know how they work...