Hey, gang!
This may be a bit OT, but using dial-up while my wireless is
down is slowing my use of Emailer to a crawl. (That's the
factor which makes it not 100% OT - that's my story anyway.)
This is an odd thing which is driving me crazy, but maybe
someone on the list who is familiar with 8.6/9.x and
wireless can offer a clue before I hire some local guru to
try and get me out of it.
I have two PowerBooks, a Kanga running 8.6 and a WallStreet
booting 9.2.2 and 10.2.8. The Kanga is my main machine.
About two years ago I bought an 11b PCMCIA wireless card for
my Kanga and made arrangements with my neighbor to share the
signal from his LinkSys router. This worked so well that I
bought another identical card for my Wallstreet. (The cards
work only on pre-X, which is what I use almost all the time,
there is no driver for X. The manufacturer has an 11g card
with an OSX driver.)
It worked like Gangbusters on both machines for well over a
year. Then mysteriously I could not get a connection on either
machine even though the Control Panel for my card was
showing a strong signal. I didn't think that I had changed
anything, but it's possible that I did. I'm sure that I
didn't change anything on the WallStreet, because I rarely
use it. I suspected the neighbor's router, but he was
connecting without trouble.
I took both machines to other "hot spots" where people were
cruising, but could not connect on either machine, even
though the Control Panel was showing strong signal.
Then, after a few weeks of being down, I started getting
connections with both machines, and it seemed that all was
well, but I could not put my finger on anything which might
have caused it to start working again. Both machines just
started cruising at the same time with no clue as to what did
it.
Now my connections have dropped out again, on both machines.
Again I went to other "hot spots" where I was the only one
having trouble. Again I saw strong signal on the Control
Panel but no connection.
The Tech Support for my PCMCIA cards has tried hard, but
can't some up with the answer.
Here's what I did to try and pinpoint the trouble:
1) Made sure that TCP/IP is set to "using DHCP server."
2) Rebuilt the desktop.
3) Zapped the PRAM
4) Reinstalled the drivers for the PCMCIA cards from the
manufacturer's original CD.
5) Returned the cards to the manufacturer and they verified
that the cards are OK. Besides, the chance of two cards
both going out and then in and then out at the same time
are miniscule.
6) Got out an old CD backup of my hard drive from the time
when the wireless was working perfectly. Replaced the
System Folder of the Kanga HD with the System Folder of
the old backup. No luck.
6) On a separate partition with no OS, did a clean install of
OS9.1 from an original CD. Installed the drivers for the
card from its original CD. Checked that TCP/IP was set
properly. Opened a fresh copy of Explorer which came
from the 9.1 install. Not able to connect, even though
the Control Panel showed strong signal. Same thing with
the fresh copy of Netscape Communicator which came with
the 9.1 install. Same thing with my usual browser, iCab.
Went to an alternate hot spot, same results.
The only possible clue is that, just once, I saw the Kanga
momentarily try to connect and a web page came partially in
before the signal was dropped in a matter of seconds. It
looked like the machine was struggling for a connection, but
generally it immediately fails to connect without even
looking like it's trying, while the Control Panel shows
strong signal.
I'll bet that the answer is something simple which is going
to embarrass me, but that's what happens when you're only a
low-power-user.
So any clues will be appreciated from this great group which
has helped me so many times (and I've offered help on the
few occasions where I could).
Thanks & best regards,
Bill
_______________________________oOo______________________________
William D. Bandes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Zephyr Cove NV USA
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