ath finds wireless network, but won't activate

[dochawk]

I've had to get a new laptop; it's a Toshiba Satellite L305D-S5914.

Once more, I'm having peek-a-boo problems with the network.

I compiled madwifi .10.5.6, modprobed the two modules, and was able to connect. I think it connected again after the first reboot.

I have it set for autoconnect, and have tried with and without security, and with static ip and dhcp (ultimately, I need either static or to find a way to consistently assign the same ip by dhcp with this new tmobile router. Surely it has such a setting . . . )

Anyway, knetworkmanager shows "State: disconnected" for ath0. However, if I click on it, it shows my wireless network and a signal strength.

Similarly, nm-tool finds the network:

root@redtail:/home/hawk# nm-tool

NetworkManager Tool

State: connected

- Device: eth0 ----------------------------------------------------------------
Type: Wired
Driver: r8169
State: connected
Default: yes
HW Address: 00:1E:33:9F:FB:88

Capabilities:
Supported: yes
Carrier Detect: yes
Speed: 100 Mb/s

Wired Settings

IPv4 Settings:
Address: 192.168.0.101
Prefix: 24 (255.255.255.0)
Gateway: 192.168.0.1

DNS: 192.168.2.1


- Device: ath0 ----------------------------------------------------------------
Type: 802.11 WiFi
Driver: ath_pci
State: disconnected
Default: no
HW Address: 00:242:17:785

Capabilities:
Supported: yes

Wireless Settings
WEP Encryption: yes
WPA Encryption: yes
WPA2 Encryption: yes

Wireless Access Points
aerie: Infra, 00:22:6B:06:93:32, Freq 2437 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 42
V1500: Ad-Hoc, 02:F6:6A:F1:70:4D, Freq 2412 MHz, Rate 11 Mb/s, Strength 18
Foundry AP IP250 0: Infra, 00:12:F2:E9:1A8, Freq 2437 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 2 WPA

I've done basically the same thing with three laptops now. The first did the same thing as I've described here (though worked flawlessly with FreeBSD), but I've decided to completely disable wireless, as it requires my daughter to have the wire visibly going into her room to connect to the internet (An Acer 5000 series). The compaq 700 series was able to use dhcp correctly, so I set the router to always give it the same IP [so that I could use other wireless when I travelled).

This one actually connects less than the Acer did.

I must be missing something here.

hawk

[Guest]

Re: ath finds wireless network, but won't activate

greets dochawk,
I'm new here and your post on wireless problems really interest me. I've recently been trying several different wireless PCMCIA cards in an old Gateway Solo 9300 with lots of success. I just tried a Linksys card that had an atheros chipset and had an issue with it not being able to perform all 'said' functions.
I found this on the toshiba website in reference to your user manual:

"To use the Atheros SuperAG™ or SuperG™ wireless function, if available, your client and access point must support the corresponding feature"
Link:
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/t...65394%7CPSLC0U


So I assume from the statement that the access point has to support the 'SuperG' function as well...what type of access point are you using?
Maybe the problem is not with your wireless but with your access point?

I also found a nice website with some info on different chipsets and Linux:
http://users.linpro.no/janl/hardware/wifi.html

What particular chipset are you using i.e: what's the number on it? (ARxxx) Is it possible to simply try ndiswrapper driver instead?
Hope this helps in your troubleshooting.

[dochawk]

[solved]: ath finds wireless network, but won't activate

I've got it solved. I purged network-manager and network-manager-kde, and put the following in /etc/network/interfaces:

auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp


My router is configured to automatically assign the same ip to my card. Now everything works.

hawk

[Detonate]

Re: ath finds wireless network, but won't activate

That will work on unsecured networks. But if you need to access secured networks, you are going to have to do some more editing of the interfaces file. I highly recommend Wicd as the solution to these problems.

[flarson]

Re: ath finds wireless network, but won't activate

wicd is a fine piece of software, but the additional lines to use a secured network are very simple. Something like
wap-ssid your ssid
wap-psk your passphrase

They may vary a little depending on how you setup your wireless access point.

[Detonate]

Re: ath finds wireless network, but won't activate

I was thinking more about a laptop that may do a bit of traveling. Yes, the interfaces file can be edited, but it's a pain to have to edit it every time one changes locations. Of course most WiFi hot spots are open with no encryption anyway, so maybe it would not be much of a problem.