Looking for wireless troubleshooting tips for a T30

[motero99]

I am looking for tips on troubleshooting a wireless connection. I rreplaced the mobo in my T30. Actually, it was more like putting my monitor and parts on an existing T30 lower assembly. After getting XP running, I tried to install the old Atheros AR5002X based mini pc card. I have tried a number of drivers and it still does not see my network. If I do an IPCONFIG, I see that the media is not connected. If I scan for networks, nothing is seen. I can look at the statistics and see the the radio is sending packets. It may be just a bad driver, but I think not. Is the antenna connected somewhere in the LCD? Is it possible to disconnect it. I did try reversing the antenna connectors, but whe I did that, XP seemed to be taking a very long time to boot and I finally powered the system off. Before I buy another wireless card, I am looking for things I can check to make sure it is the card that is bad. Yes, I did do the 1802 hack and the 01C9 as well. XP says the card is funtioning. thank you

[Merlin Witt]

Go to www.netstumbler.com and download Netstumbler. Netstumbler is a software package designed to locate access points. Install Netstumbler.
Then go to MS and download the update KB893357. It adds WPA capability to windows XPSPK2.
And finally go to www.pingplotter.com and download the latest version of pingplotter. Pingplotter is a utility that shows lots of information about your connection (wired or wireless). This will give you enough freeware to troubleshoot your network and update XP.

Then you should launch Netstumbler, to see if it can find your wireless card. It will should also automatically locate all of the access points in range of your card. IF you can see even one access point, your card is working.

Then you should install pingplotter and see if you can ping your router's (access points) LAN Address ie. 192.168.x.x (you will have to type it in the white area in the upper left corner of the pingplotter screen).

If you cannot ping your router, the problem is in your network configuration or your router's (access point) setup. {I have seen access points (wireless routers) that required a static LAN address and both a LAN and Internet gateway address assignment before it was possible to connect through the router.}

In Windows XP SPK2 you will need to open control panel and run the Wireless Network Setup Wizard (if you have not already done so). It may be necessary to open Internet Explorer and re-do your internet connections.

If you can ping your wireless router, you need to double or triple check your router's configuration. Something in you router is not allowing you to access the internet. This could be anything from a missing or incorrect WEP key to not matching the WPA key depending upon your router's security settings, to needing a static address assignment, to needing to duplicate your computer's MAC addess.

A hint. when you can ping your ISP's URL in pingplotter, you should be finished and able to connect to the internet. There are several other things to check, but these steps will take about two hours with a fast connection,

Regards,
Merlin

[RealBlackStuff]

Try to disable your firewall for a short while, that could block you as well.

[thuur]

Just for the record: BIOS settings are equal between this and the previous mobo?


R,

[RealBlackStuff]

Ah, Limburger!

There are 2 different types of T30 mobo, did you replace like with like?

[motero99]

Bios setting are the same, I reset to defaults. I replaced a 2366-41U mobo with one from an 81U. The specs seem to be identical except that the 41U shipped with Win2K and the 81U shipped XP. I am running XP. With one Atheros driver and management software, I believe it was 5.00.107 or something like that, I could see in the diagnostics that the card was transmittiing on Japanese channels. I could not find a way to change that. Also diagnostics passed everything except the last step which was called Association which I took to be connectivity to a LAN. If I did an IPCONFIG, it said Media disconnected, which is the same error you would get with a regular ethernet card if you disconnected the cable, which then meant DHCP was not passing on IP address. The major difference from before is that I am now running WEP because Apple broke WPA back at Tiger 2.4.10 and one of my kids has a MACBOOK. I guess I can try WPA, but if somehow the channels think they are cmmunicating on something Japanese and not US, that could be an issue. I installed a 4.xx driver, but that level of management software does not have the diagnostics nor a read on the channel set. I did find that channels are transmitting on 34 and the only way to change that is to go to ADHOC instead of Infrastructure or to go to 2.4 GHZ isntead of the default 5. I do see that the card is sending packets, so it is trying to communicate, it just does not receive anything. Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, I will try to work on this over the weekend. I will try the IBM Atheros driver from the T4X to see if it works with the card. I think I used a driver from HP before, but cannot find it.