I was playing around with the wireless setting last night, and it works now. I have no idea why.

I started out unable to associate, as normal. (The access point shows the correct MAC address, but the signal strength is reported as 0, and DHCP doesn't.)

My access point was set up with only 1 valid key, and under "Advanced Wireless Settings", the authentication type was "Shared". I changed the authentication type to "Auto", and populated the other 3 key slots. Then I ran "iwconfig wlan0 essid <ESSID> key [2] <key2> key [3] <key3> key [4] <key 4>"

At that point, it associated. I used nm-applet, and was able to get an ip address. I rebooted, the fix seems to have stuck. (It also worked after a full power-off).

Other systems are still able to use the network, so I didn't change the first key. The only conclusion I can come to is that changing the authentication type fixed things. That authentication type worked fine when the laptop was running Fedora 6.

I was also unable to associate with a friend's wireless network. I'll be able to test that this week and see if it's magically better now too. If so, that kills the authentication type theory, and we're back at black magic.

Doug

Ben Little wrote:

I know that wifi-radar seems to work fine on my laptop, using the same wifi card.

I've tried disabling NetworkManager, and configuring the network via either system-config-network, or just iwconfig. I havn't been able to get either to work (with either card).

wifi-radar looks like a different packaging, right? It shouldn't do anything you can't do via iwconfig, right?

iwconfig essid oppositelock.org key [key] mode managed

doesn't work. Under access point, it will sometimes say "invalid" with the Cisco card. The built-in card shows the right access point, but signal strength zero, when I'm right next to the AP. I know the key is correct...

Doug