[Madwifi-users] DHCP not working on Thinkpad X40

[Maarten d. B. <md...@tw...>]

Hi,

Recently I have purchased a Thinkpad X40. Everything is working ok,
except my Atheros wireless network card. In Windows XP (which is still
installed as dual-boot) everything is working fine.

I am running 2.6.8.1 and have installed the madwifi drivers from CVS
(September 12, 2004) according to the [1]HOWTO on linux-wireless.org.
The drivers are working ok, and my accesspoint (Asus WL-500g) is found.
The problem is that I can't get a DHCPACK and configuring the network
manually (e.g. ifconfig ath0 192.168.8.3 up) does not work. So I can see
that the card is working, but can't get a connection.

The following is the output of 'iwconfig ath0' at one moment:

| vortex:/home/mdb# iwconfig ath0
| ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"TWISTER"  
|           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412GHz  Access Point: 00:0E:A6:F0:4A:40   
|           Bit Rate:1Mb/s   Tx-Power:50 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3  
|           Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
|           Encryption key:2627-F685-97   Security mode:restricted
|           Power Management:off
|           Link Quality=31/94  Signal level=-64 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
|           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
|           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

But the next moment no AP can be found. This also happens when I'm
keeping my laptop next to the AP:

| vortex:/home/mdb# iwconfig ath0
| ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"TWISTER"  
|           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.432GHz  Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF   
|           Bit Rate:1Mb/s   Tx-Power:50 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3  
|           Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
|           Encryption key:2627-F685-97   Security mode:restricted
|           Power Management:off
|           Link Quality=28/94  Signal level=-67 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
|           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
|           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Scanning for networks gives the following output at one moment:

| vortex:/home/mdb# iwlist ath0 scan
| ath0      Failed to read scan data : Resource temporarily unavailable

But the next moment it seems to work:

| vortex:/home/mdb# iwlist ath0 scan
| ath0      Scan completed :
|           Cell 01 - Address: 00:0E:A6:F0:4A:40
|                     ESSID:"TWISTER"
|                     Mode:Master
|                     Frequency:2.412GHz (Channel 1)
|                     Quality=32/94  Signal level=-63 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
|                     Encryption key:on
|                     Bit Rate:1Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:2Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:5Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:6Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:9Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:11Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:12Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:18Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:24Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:36Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:48Mb/s
|                     Bit Rate:54Mb/s
|                     Extra:bcn_int=100

Does anybody have any clue on where to search for a solution? I've
attached my dmesg output. I'm using Debian unstable with the following
settings in /etc/network/interfaces:

| iface ath0 inet dhcp
|   wireless_mode managed
|   wireless_enc on
|   wireless_key XXXX-XXXX-XX
|   wireless_essid TWISTER

Hopefully you can help me out!

Thanks in advance,
Maarten den Braber

[1]http://www.linux-wireless.org/Wireless/Install-HOWTO/Drivers/madwifi/madwifi-20040827-linux-2.6.8.1.Patch-Howto.txt
-- 
Als er niet is gelachen,
was het niet serieus genoeg