[KLUG Members] Laptop PCMCIA Wireless Problem

[Kevin Wixson]

John says I screwed up the LPI thread, so here's a fresh one for my 
business. Sorry for making a mess.

I still can't get my Netgear MA401 Wireless PCMCIA network card to work on 
my Gateway Solo 1200 running SuSe 9.1 Pro. FYI, all was working when 
running Win XP just before I installed Linux. John asked about different 
access points, and yes, this problem persists under multiple AP 
environments, including the Linksys WAP11 here at home and the one at the 
Chamber.

I tried Matthew's solution, which was:

go to a console i.e. Crtl+Alt+F1, F2, F3...
log in as root then do

ifdown eth0
ifdown eth1
ifup eth1

...which seems like it would be the thing to do, but it didn't work. The 
response when I enter

# ifup eth1

is:

 > Starting DHCP Client Daemon on eth1... no IP address yet... backgrounding

and the link light is solid again but there is no connection. 
Again,  iwconfig reveals that it is picking up the ESSID, but ifconfig 
shows that it is not getting the DHCP information. No IP address, no net 
mask, no default gateway, etc. It *does* list various amounts of errors in 
the TX line. Is that significant? Can you find out what those errors are? 
Is it helpful to find out what those errors are? How do I get it to receive 
DHCP info?

DHCP, in this case, by the way, is being carried out by Internet Connection 
Sharing on a box running Win2k Pro. Necessary because I am forced to use 
satellite Internet access, which only runs on Windows.

Must get this running or wife will insist that I put Windows XP back on there.







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HELP!

I've been bugging some of you about this issue at the meetings lately and 
you've all been very kind to help me as much as you can. I'm still can't 
get it fixed, though.

System:
Gateway Solo 1200
         800MHz
         128MB RAM
         CD-ROM
         10/100 Integrated
         WinModem
         1024x768 LCD
Netgear MA401 wireless PCMCIA card

I know about this much about Linux. {holds thumb and index finger about a 
centimeter apart}

People who tried to help me with this suggested that it seemed to be a 
problem with the PCMCIA system in Mandrake 10 Official. So, last night I 
installed SuSe 9.1 Pro [Thanks Bruce!] and plugged in the card. SuSe 
recognized it and I configured it and the link light is solid when it is in 
the computer. The iwconfig command reveals that the card is recognizing the 
access point's ESSID, but from what I can tell from the ifconfig command, 
the card (Eth1) is not getting info from DHCP. Network no joy.

Where do I start?



Kevin C. Wixson
kevin at wixsonit.com
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/kevincharles
http://www.wixsonit.com
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MSN IM = kevinkps at hotmail.com
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