Wifi connection problem

hi folks,

I’ve been using OpenSUSE 11/kde3 for sometime and this has been a lingering headache that doesn’t go away. I read the archive about similar problems but no one has offered a true solution.

Gist of the problem is this : wireless connection to my lindsys router is very erratic. After rebooting my notebook, connection is lost and I couldn’t get it reconnect again with knetworkmanager. After I fiddle with YaST -> Network Device -> settings, all of a sudden it’s connecting again. When I take the notebook to Starbucks for a coffee, I couldn’t get it to connect to attwifi, or for that matter any other wifi.

OK, I know you’d ask, so 1) the wireless radio is ON, 2)the card is working because it’s seeing all the wifis in its neighborhood, as found by iwlist scan and are displayed knetworkmanager, 3) I do have encryption at the router (WPA-Personal).

I read on this forum that knetworkmanager can’t deal with encryption, is that correct?

Is there any alternative to knetworkmanager?

Thanks in advance.

HT


Here is my wireless card/driver info,

lspci output :
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN Network Connection (rev 61)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Lenovo ThinkPad T51
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 4344
Memory at df3fe000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: iwl4965
Kernel modules: iwl4965

iwlist scan

lo Interface doesn’t support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.

wmaster0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.

wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:18:F8:E7:25:9B
ESSID:“TJ_OK”
Mode:Master
Channel:3
Frequency:2.422 GHz (Channel 3)
Quality=69/100 Signal level=-64 dBm Noise level=-127 dBm
Encryption key:on
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Extra:tsf=0000039c854f8558
Cell 02 - Address: 00:17:9A:9E:69:5C
ESSID:“Johnson”
Mode:Master
Channel:6
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality=66/100 Signal level=-67 dBm Noise level=-127 dBm
Encryption key:on
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:tsf=00000003e2b5401e

hwinfo --wlan
02: PCI 300.0: 0282 WLAN controller
[Created at pci.310]
UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_4230
Unique ID: y9sn.WSWwjj0Us20
Parent ID: qTvu._Y5kuEY+GiC
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.1/0000:03:00.0
SysFS BusID: 0000:03:00.0
Hardware Class: network
Model: “Intel Lenovo ThinkPad T51”
Vendor: pci 0x8086 “Intel Corporation”
Device: pci 0x4230 “PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN Network Connection”
SubVendor: pci 0x8086 “Intel Corporation”
SubDevice: pci 0x1110 “Lenovo ThinkPad T51”
Revision: 0x61
Driver: “iwl4965”
Driver Modules: “iwl4965”
Device File: wlan0
Features: WLAN
Memory Range: 0xdf3fe000-0xdf3fffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
IRQ: 4344 (no events)
HW Address: 00:1f:3b:5b:35:e7
Link detected: no
WLAN channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 149 153 157 161 165
WLAN frequencies: 2.412 2.417 2.422 2.427 2.432 2.437 2.442 2.447 2.452 2.457 2.462 5.18 5.2 5.22 5.24 5.26 5.28 5.3 5.32 5.745 5.765 5.785 5.805 5.825
WLAN encryption modes: WEP40 WEP104 TKIP CCMP
WLAN authentication modes: open sharedkey wpa-psk wpa-eap
Module Alias: “pci:v00008086d00004230sv00008086sd00001110bc02sc80i00”
Driver Info #0:
Driver Status: iwl4965 is active
Driver Activation Cmd: “modprobe iwl4965”
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
Attached to: #16 (PCI bridge)[/size]

On my desktop PC with an Atheros wireless card I have never been able to persuade KNetworkManager to work properly (over several versions of opensuse). Therefore I have reverted to using the command line, but even then I still find it each time I reboot the wireless connection does not automatically reconnect and I have to restart the network service for it to work.

However, on my laptop with an Intel wireless card KNetworkManager works without problems with a WEP connection.

hi rjwilmsi, could you show me how you get connection to work on the command line. i’d be more than happy to get ride of KNetworkManager.

many thanks (if you know how many hours i’ve spent on this issue).

H

I’ve recentlly enstalled opensuse 10.3. Having trouble connecting to internet with LAN or USB modem. I think its the knetworkmanager, it doesen’t seem to be working. Everything in yast seems to be fine.

Have there been lots of probs with knetworkmanager? And has anyone got the Rogers USB modem wireless modem working?

Wil

many folks would say; out of real curiosity:

where on earth did you get a copy of 10.3 from: that must be at least three years old:

OpenSuse went to 11.1 last December or so; and the new version, 11.2 is due out in … November?

  1. So you might be better to at least try 11.1;

  2. and if 11.1 doesn’;t work for you, you should post in the specific WIRELESS sub-forum of this forum, you will have more certainty of getting answers: have a read at what are called “STICKIES”: three posts at the beginning of the wireless forum; linux can be very rewarding if you can find a little time to understand some topics: