Wireless Driver issues with a T43

[Sudevan]

As part of my ongoing updating of the Linux OSs on my numerous Thinkpads, I was working on a T43, with MTM 2668-43U, and with a 14.1” XGA display and a Pentium M (1.86G ) CPU. It has 802.1 b/g wireless. When I booted it up, with Linux 17, the taskbar wireless icon (the "staircase") showed a good connection through my NETGEAR wireless router with 87% strength. But when I tried going out on the web with Firefox, or with Chromium, the connection did not work with any of the websites I tried. The usual messages, saying the connection failed, were displayed by the browsers. This was the case even after a second cold boot. Rather than systematically isolate the problem, I thought I would upgrade the entire OS to Mint 17.2 / Rafaela, from a recently burned disc. I have been doing this upgrade on many of my T43s anyway, and Rafaela works beautifully on the admirable T43s. Once this upgrade was done, I had no problem accessing websites through either browser. So my guess is that the wireless driver in my original Mint 17 OS somehow got corrupted.

I searched the net and this forum to see if there were posts that related to this issue. I did not find any here (maybe I was using the wrong search terms), and there was one highly technical discussion on the Internet that seemed to be related but was rather beyond my ken. The question remains as to why the taskbar icon showed a strong connection and yet my browsers could not access websites. It's conceivable that both Firefox and Chromium were corrupted instead of, or in addition to, the wireless driver. It's still puzzling. If any of you have encountered something similar, I'd like to hear from you. Almost every problem I have run into with Thinkpads has been seen and/or resolved by someone in this forum, so the chances are good that others may have had the same problem.

Note: I posted this here, in the T43 group in the Forum, I am not sure if it belongs here or in the Linux group. My apologies if I chose the wrong group.

Sudevan

[Neil]

It could have been that at the time your T43 was connected to the wireless LAN, but the router was temporarily unable to connect to the WAN (internet). I have seen similar situations on rare occasions. Don't know enough to even guess why it happens, but I my mind I imagine the local ISP is experiencing issues, or updating something, that causes a temporary outage. Or, it could be something else altogether.

[Sudevan]

Neil, thank you for this suggestion. I thought of the possibility, but the LAN had been working fine all day when I was updating a slew of Thinkpads. I could also get to the net using my "mainframe", a desktop Dell XPS 8700, although that was wired to the router. I should have checked my iPad which was in the living room of my flat, whereas the Dell and the T43 were located in my study, but I did not think of it. I must say it is possible that during that short period of time, say 15 minutes or so when I was trying to reboot, etc., there could have been something wrong with the LAN which then got fixed. Now I'll never know, unless it happens with another one of my Thinkpads -- in which case, I'll be sure to check the iPad right away. In any case, all's well that ends well, and I have upgraded a couple more Thinkpads without any issues.

Sudevan