Lombard Wireless Frustrations...

[J English Smith]

My 2nd Lombard, the one running 9.2.2, has become unable to connect with wireless. I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out what's wrong...it's just weird.

Hardware seems good, both the laptop and the Orinoco Silver card. I re-loaded 9.2.2 as a clean install and also tried 9.1 with a install of the old drivers for the Orinoco card. It can't see any of the available networks - either at home or at the office. It sees some networks, though, and I know the card is good. Also tried a boot with extensions disabled, didn't help. My home antenna for the router was in the same room I was testing in, set to WEP encryption, and it still couldn't see it.

Appleshare is set off and the TCP/IP control is set to use the card and DCHP protocol.

Has anyone else encountered inconsistencies connecting in 9.2.2? I don't know whether something is borked with the card slot or the software...I would think if the laptop was at fault, it would not see the card at all, and certainly would not see some of the networks but not others.

Thanks for any advice...I just can't figure out what the problem is on this one...

 

[PowerPup]

Hm, that does seem really strange. I had a Orinoco Gold Card for my Lombard, it worked well unless you used it for too long and it got hot. Then you'd have to wait for it to cool off.

Anyway, the only thing I can think of trying besides upgrading the firmware to Gold would be to try using Airport Drivers instead of the Orinoco Drivers. I'm not a hundred percent sure but I seemed to have gotten better range with the Airport Drivers. (I seem to recall a stability issue with the Orinoco Control Panel in either Mac OS 8 or 9... I can't remember, only that I liked the Airport Drivers better.)

Edit: Oh, I just noticed that you've got a PB5300 and 1400, you can use the Orinoco Drivers on one of them and see if it's the card, or if the drivers are not stable on Mac OS 9.

 

[J English Smith]

Power Pup - thanks for the ideas. I only tried to re-install the Orinoco drivers because the Airport software was acting so weird and not seeing the network, initiating short term freezes etc. But I don't know how to make OS 9.2 see the card as a WaveLan card rather than an Airport card. That's why I tried stepping back to 9.1, and there the card is seen as WaveLan and the Orinoco drivers work, but same result, no hook.

I have now taken a new Pismo I just got in, done a virgin install of 9.2.2 and I'm going to try and make that one see the open network at work using the Orinoco card. Last night that one was not seeing the home network either. Curiouser and curiouser...

I may just give up and let the Pismos running 10.4.11 be my internet daily drivers and consign the two Lombards to offline duty. I'm just doing it to try and understand what is going on...it's bugging me that I can't figure it out, you know?

 

[techknight]

possible the card died?

I had older microsoft MN-720 cards that I ran in my lombard with tiger, it picks them up with the native airport drivers on tiger only. not for os9 though.

 

[Strimkind]

My 2nd Lombard, the one running 9.2.2, has become unable to connect with wireless. I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out what's wrong...it's just weird.
Hardware seems good, both the laptop and the Orinoco Silver card. I re-loaded 9.2.2 as a clean install and also tried 9.1 with a install of the old drivers for the Orinoco card. It can't see any of the available networks - either at home or at the office. It sees some networks, though, and I know the card is good. Also tried a boot with extensions disabled, didn't help. My home antenna for the router was in the same room I was testing in, set to WEP encryption, and it still couldn't see it.

Appleshare is set off and the TCP/IP control is set to use the card and DCHP protocol.

Has anyone else encountered inconsistencies connecting in 9.2.2? I don't know whether something is borked with the card slot or the software...I would think if the laptop was at fault, it would not see the card at all, and certainly would not see some of the networks but not others.

Thanks for any advice...I just can't figure out what the problem is on this one...

What version of the Proxim driver software are you using? 6.3, 7.1 and 7.2 are compatible with 9.2.2 but apparently the newer firmware doesn't work with some of the older software installs (I have run into this). It will see the card but not do anything like find networks. I have a dual boot with my 1400 with 8.6 and 9.2.2 and different software versions. My newer card works with 9.2.2 but not 8.6

Further, I had connection issues with my Orinoco Silver card until I switched the router to Long Preamble so make sure you have it set to that.

Hope that helps!

 

[J English Smith]

Strimkind - thanks, I will check those settings and give it a try.

I finally got a good work hook using the Orinoco card in a different part of the building, I think the wifi here that I use is weak in my office. The original Airport card works OK, a Motorola card works OK but the Orinoco Silver does not. This is our Guest wifi so it makes sense that our area is not a prime hotspot.

The home thing stumps me. I'm going to try my old router and temporarily disable encryption and see what that does. If that solves it, then it may be a router incompatibility that is happening there. The old 2Wire modem/router was what we had in place for a long time. I'll also toggle the settings to Long Preamble first and see if that does anything.

 

[coius]

Is your home router set to be backwards (802.11b) compatible? if it is stuck at 802.11g (54Mbps) it might not be able to see it as it won't talk to it due to the slower speed.

Also, is the SSID Hidden and you don't know? Did you have to program your other machines to look for that SSID?

Another thing I got to thinking is that you might have broken the internal solder/trace on the antenna and therefore may not be able to receive anything due to the antenna being broken.

Check a few things, you may try entering the network manually and see if it works. if it connects, you may simply be hitting a bug in the software. It's rare, but as we all know, bugs happen and developers are expected to count for anything and everything (which is extremely hard)