Frustrated, beyond furious

[Andy Sjostrom]

I have had a terrible weekend, and the beginning of this week does not look any better. Here are some fragments:<br /><br />I have tried getting a WiFi network up and running at home. I bought a <a href="http://www.dlink.com/products/broadband/di804/">D-Link DI-804 router</a> and got that working. Then starts Nightmare: setting up the <a href="http://www.symbol.com/products/wireless/ap41x1.html">Symbol Access Point 4121-1050-EU</a> (AP) and getting it to communicate with my HP Jornada 565 and Socket WiFi Compact Flash card. Before I go on, let me issue a severe warning. Do not, I repeat, do not say setting up a WiFi network is easy. That would make me explode...<br /><br />I connect the AP to the router. It gets an IP. I can ping it. I can configure it both using Telnet and the Web UI. I set the ESSID on both AP and Pocket PC , I choose "Infrastructure" as operating mode. I turn off WEP, I enable "Accept Broadcast ESSID", I try both enabling DHCP on AP and Pocket PC as well as disabling and setting static IPs. I soft reset a gazillion times. After a while the AP does not initialize after a reset. I hard reset the AP by shorting serial port pin 2 and 3, it comes back. I hard reset my Pocket PC (!), install Socket drivers. STILL NO CONNECTION! I am not sure which will go out the window first: the Symbol AP, the HP Pocket PC or Socket's CF card.<br /><br />I've been working, both professionally and privately, with Pocket PCs the last four years. My computer experience goes 20 years back. I have got WiFi networks up and running before. If I can't get this working, who will!? Well, OK! I know one: Chris De Herrera of <a href="http://www.cewindows.net/">CEWindows.NET</a>. If it wasn't for his assistance this weekend, I'd be hospitalized. Chris has given scores of valid input and things to try. He is one of the most helpful and patient guys I know.<br /><br />(Now. Feel better. Pocket PC Thoughts is the best shrink there is!)

[Arne Hess]

I have had a terrible weekend, and the beginning of this week does not look any better. Here are some fragments:
Before I go on, let me issue a severe warning. Do not, I repeat, do not say setting up a WiFi network is easy. That would make me explode...
Sorry to hear that it didn't worked as expected... :(
But it makes me also smiling a little bit :lol: because it's great that you highlight it here that also Wi-Fi isn't so easy to enable/configure cause all the discussion we had here on Thoughts about "how cool and easy Wi-Fi is and how difficult and non-cool Bluetooth is". :wink:
I mean we are talking about technologies and specially wireless technologies (expect infrared) are always hard to configure.

[marlof]

I agree on one thing: Chris De Herrera is a very helpful person. When I was looking for someone to help out the Japanese programmer of nPOP with the English translation, he volunteered immediately. And I know he's a busy guy, so it's not like he has lots of spare time to spend. He just likes helping out. Chris, you rock!

And I'm really, really hoping that setting up a Linksys WiFi Router after they install my cable modem connection in September will be less of a pain than your D-Link / Symbol combination!

[Andy Sjostrom]

Arne, my friend!
I am not in the mood right now. :cry:

[Arne Hess]

Arne, my friend!
I am not in the mood right now. :cry:
Sorry to hear but at least all/most of us had this experiences with W-LAN, Access Points, DSL modems too...
My first installation on my PC at homes made me sick like your one...
It was so frustrating so I know how you feel... :silly:

[Leon]

And I'm really, really hoping that setting up a Linksys WiFi Router after they install my cable modem connection in September will be less of a pain than your D-Link / Symbol combination!
If your cards (for Pocket PC, laptop) are also Linksys, you will be up and running in half an hour. The only issue can arise if your ISP looks for a specific MAC (network card) address and therefor will not acccept the router to be connected directly to the cable modem. However, the Linksys router has a software option to spoof that same MAC address, so your ISP will be happy.
Try not to mix brands. I know it is supposed to work but I've seen too many reports proving otherwise.

[Ravenswing]

Try not to mix brands. I know it is supposed to work but I've seen too many reports proving otherwise.

Asus ADSL modem/router, D-Link AP, Orinoco Silver 802.11b card... no real problems once I took some advice and disabled the router's DNS forwarding system.

If it were me, and I was having that kind of trouble, I'd be blaming the hardware by now. Fritzed card or AP. Got any proof that any particular one of them is working?

Anyway, I've had enough painful network installations to comiserate in a major way. Good luck getting it sorted.

[DrtyBlvd]

My sympathies are with you Andy.

Took me two weeks. Still don't know what I did eventually to make it work and have NO intention of messing with it to find out.

[Chris Forsberg]

After all the discussions we had during the weekend I think that the problem is on the PPC/CFWLAN side. I would try the PCMCIA-WLAN that you have. And don't forget to capitalize the ESSID (you never know).

[rmikulec]

I can sympathize with you. I too had a difficult time. My setup was futher complicated by the SMC AP I purchased. The first one did not work no matter what I did, so I returned it. The second one also did not work. SMC had no answers, so I took it apart and found that the card on the inside was not plugged into its socket. When I told SMC about how I fixed it they were elated. They told me that I had just solved a major manufacturing issue. They had an entire batch of APs that did not have the card inserted. My reward for that was exactly nothing.

I will say that after I got it initially configured, the network is pretty easy to add to. All you have to do is keep track of all your settings!

[Andy Sjostrom]

Thanks everyone for your sympathies! Motivation is slowly returning. I just have to get this fixed!

[don dre]

I have had a similar experience. Back about a year and a half ago I had tried to set up a wireless network with Linksys AP, pc card, and USB on two Win 98 machines. The result was hell. In fact it never worked properly until I replaced the USB network adapter with a D-Link pc card and pci adapter and upgraded both PC's to XP. Recently, we set up a wireless home network with a motorola cable modem, Linksys card, D-Link card and AP. No problems whatsoever. With the original network, the Linksys software was poor. Admittedly it has improved immensely since then. Also, I'm not sure how much of a factor it is, but I have found XP immeasurably more agreeable with these new technologies. Given the Win 95 core for the PPC OS I'm not entirely surprised that it is problematic. Have you gotten the AP to work with desktops and/or notebooks?

[rmikulec]

Here are a couple tips:

1. Let your wired network run DHCP not the AP
2. Manually confiure all settings including IP address at first.
3. Make sure you have the proper cable connecting the AP to the HUB.

Rob

[Ed Hansberry]

I have tried getting a WiFi network up and running at home. I bought a D-Link DI-804 router (http://www.dlink.com/products/broadband/di804/) and got that working. Then starts Nightmare: setting up the Symbol Access Point 4121-1050-EU (http://www.symbol.com/products/wireless/ap41x1.html) (AP) and getting it to communicate with my HP Jornada 565 and Socket WiFi Compact Flash card.
Just curious. Why did you by a separate router and AP? I use the Linksys router/access point and it was a snap.

[splintercell]

I've had pretty good experiences so far: Linksys 8-port cable/dsl router, D-Link 713P router/ap/print server, Linksys WAP 11 AP, Orinoco AP-200, with some powerline bridges thrown in, a 3com Audrey, an Apple iBook, Orinoco USB clients and PCMCIA Gold adapters, and Windows 98 (way back when) and XP and MacOS now. Relatively easy to set up and they've worked since day one, until XP had some problems with older firmware on the Linky and D-Link APs.

Definitely not as involved as the Orinoco AP-2000's at work. :wink:

[Andy Sjostrom]

Ed!
I had the unused Symbol AP since one year back. Combined WiFi + routers are not common in Sweden. The best deal I found was the DI804 router. Just curious: should it matter!?!?!?!?

[Master O'Mayhem]

HAHAHA Andy, You suck!!! Just kdding!!! :) :) :) :) I had some problems with the Linksys Cable/dsl Modem and Wireless AP that EdH referred too. The problem was when we were hooking up Jeff McKean's MSN DSL and the Linksys, the one thing that we did not take into account that both the Linksys and MSN DSL modem were issuing DHCP in the 192.168.1.1 scope. So naturally there was a conflict and the Linksys never came up. We did some searching and found that if we changed the DHCP range and IP on the Linksys to something like 10.10.10.1 it would immediately connect. This is my 2 cents if someone needs a tip. Maybe we can put a tip sheet or How to on this site. Hope this helps others out there. :)

[Andy Sjostrom]

Hey, Master!
Shouldn't the Pocket PC WiFi software at least report network coverage? Is that not the first indicator that things work? I get "No network coverage". If I just got that, then I bet I could get the IP details working in a snap!

[Andy Sjostrom]

... and Yes! I will start out an "How to" once I get this working.

[DrtyBlvd]

Here are a couple tips:

1. Let your wired network run DHCP not the AP
2. Manually confiure all settings including IP address at first.
3. Make sure you have the proper cable connecting the AP to the HUB.

Rob

As daft as 3) sounds, it's worth checking - the cable that came with my router was the wrong type... I would never have known as I had cable to use already.

[Ed Hansberry]

Ed!
I had the unused Symbol AP since one year back. Combined WiFi + routers are not common in Sweden. The best deal I found was the DI804 router. Just curious: should it matter!?!?!?!?

Shouldn't matter. Just asking. I have heard that mixing and matching components of a WiFi network, especially low end home stuff can be frustrating. That and the more components you have, the more problems for a breakdown. This could be something as stupid as a bad connection in the AP. :?

[Andy Sjostrom]

Thanks for the tips regarding cables to the AP. But correct me if I am wrong: cable to router and IP settings are in no way related to whether or not I see signal strength from the AP.

[Leon]

Thanks for the tips regarding cables to the AP. But correct me if I am wrong: cable to router and IP settings are in no way related to whether or not I see signal strength from the AP.
Andy, I wouldn't concentrate on the signal strength. I just tested it - as soon as I change one of the settings the signal strength is "Not Applicable", in other words: signal strength only shows after everything else is connecting OK (at least on my Linksys WCF11 card).

[fishd1]

From my VERY brief wireless experience I'd look at the SSID and the Access Control List. I think they are the only things that would prevent access to the AP. :?

If you could get a ... [looks over shoulder to see who is listening] Linux 8O based laptop with a wireless card you can get a program called Kismet that performs active scans for wireless networks.

[Master O'Mayhem]

Hey, Master!
Shouldn't the Pocket PC WiFi software at least report network coverage? Is that not the first indicator that things work? I get "No network coverage". If I just got that, then I bet I could get the IP details working in a snap!

Ok.. I have had problems with some of the CF cards. I know this is a stupid question but did you try this in a laptop? Assuming that you have a laptop and it is capable with 802.11 i have found that XP and the drivers associated usually find wireless networks alot easier that PPC and specifiaclly socket or symbol cards. BTW you like me Avatar? Its you with Symbol Access points dancing around your head!!! :)

[pradike]

:D :D For what its worth - you are not alone...

I got a great D-Link 614+ high speed router, and a Belkin CF card for my IPaq...actually both worked out of the box after 5 minutes of installing them. I just followed the instructions and everything worked the first time...

However...

That got me to a network connection and access...but I still had to "futz" with settings to get Activesync going (minor setting change).

Finally, the tricky one (but it shouldn't have been) was the WEB access. The trick was to KNOW that you need some kind of Proxy software running ont he desktop to make it work.

All works well - and I would highly recommend the hardward I got - works perfectly and gives good range.

[Andy Sjostrom]

Your avatar is a quite appropriate description of reality. Dancing around in and around my head right now are just APs. I'll let you know when I have figured this out. Then I will get a life again.

[Janak Parekh]

I agree with Master: try and get the wireless connection working with a laptop first. Preferably using a good card, like the Orinoco Gold PC card. They have infinitely superior configuration and monitoring tools, and having a laptop keyboard makes a night & day difference when you're trying to debug.

A desktop using USB might not be such a terrible idea either...

Once you get used to it, it's a snap to configure most Wi-Fi situations. But it's not nearly as easy as some proponents would have you believe, especially in esoteric configurations.

--bdj

[Jason Dunn]

Andy and I have chatted about this, and like others here have suggested, starting a process with two unknowns is asking for trouble. If you have a working Wifi part, like a PCMCIA card, that gives you a baseline for troubleshooting. I think Andy will figure it out tonight. :-)

[nox]

Dude enough with the sympathy crap , lets get this guy up and running.

Anyways lets get this fixed.

First I would make sure the AP is working with another device other than your pocket pc , say a notebook. We need to narrow down the problem.

Theres lots of factors in getting a wireless connection , the basic factor is signal strength , evne if you are not in the IP range or you have WEP or whatever you still should have a Signal. I think one exception is Channel , make sure the AP or the Wireless card is not stuck to 1 channel.

We need to figure out if its a Hardware issues , a software issue , configuration issue or a signal issue. Tackel 1 at a time.

nox

***POST EDITED BY ADMIN FOR NICENESS***

[splintercell]

Hmm, well, I guess an echo of what others have said:

Get it to work without WEP.
Assign a static address to router and AP.
Have the router do the DHCP.
Disable any MAC address or any other access filtering.
Make sure you have the right regular/crossover cable. (I always heavily depend on link lights to come on and tell me, various vendors seem to inconsistently put a regular port where an uplink should be and vice versa.)
Make sure you have at least one device (PDA, laptop, desktop) with working drivers and then maybe use something like MiniStumbler to see if you can even find your AP over the air.

Apart from that, maybe flaky hardware? Have you tried updating firmware on the router and/or AP? How about manufacturer-specific forums over at DSLreports?

[GUNSTEELE]

I agree with Jason that more than one variable is asking for trouble, but we all try the hopeful path first. The cable doesn't appear to be the problem since the rf signal isn't available, but when I built the latest system with all LinkSys (cable modem & router) and a Dell 8200 with integrated WIFI, the problems came after excellent signal at initial turnon.

Three days later, the consensus was that we had a DOA router. I had suspected the one foot CAT 5 built by the local RadioShack, but subbed a Belkin and had the same result. Then on a whim, I tried another Shack cable and everything worked! Now to add an Airspeak Flair and a couple of iPaqs and two more desktops and .....

[Andy Sjostrom]

Thanks for all advice!
I do believe the router works ok. I can get it to assign IPs to both the AP, laptop and Pocket PC.

I have tried to connect to the AP using both an iPAQ + PC Card sleeve + Compaq WL 100 PC Card and my laptop with the same PC Card -- no signal. Zero. Nothing. My conclusion is that the $1000 Symbol AP must be broken. I will give it another try again using all combinations of settings, but by now I think it should have been up and running...

[rmikulec]

Ok here is the configuration that works for me.

Pocket PC (iPaq with Compaq WL100 Card)
----------------------------------------------------

Set the IP adress manually by going to Settings->Connections->Network Adapters->(Your WiFi Card)

Check the Use Specific IP Adress

IP Address: 192.168.1.116
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Defaul Gateway: 192.168.1.1

Then select the Name Servers tab at the Bottom of the Page and enter your DNS addresses.

Then Enter You Adpter configuration utility. My settings are as follows

Mode: Infrastructure
SSID: WLAN
Transmit Rate: 11mb


WiFi AP (SMC 2652)
-----------------------------------------

AP Name : "WLAN01"
IP Address : "192.168.1.3"
Subnet Mask : "255.255.255.0"
Default Gateway : "192.168.1.1"
DHCP : "OFF"
DS Channel : 11
SSID : "WLAN"


Router (Linksys)
---------------------------------

IP Address: 192.168.1.1

I beleive that I had to use the scheme of 192.168.1. in order to get it working, but I am not positive. I think that if you tried these settings it would Work

[juni]

Ok, I know this sounds weird...but I had everything set up right in my home network and it still didn't work. Here is what fixed it for me:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q299357

Apparently xp gathers up garbage in the tcp/ip stack and resetting it fixed it.

[TopDog]

Why use D-link? 3Com has excelent, and not to expensive boxes of fun...

I've used a 3Com® OfficeConnect® Wireless Cable/DSL Gateway (cool name... NOT, but it does the trick). This baby was up 5 minutes after I took it out of the box. DCHP, firewall, WLAN, crypt., MAC-adress-locks, you name it!

For my Pocket PC's I've used AmbiCom WL1100B (cheap and ugly, but works excelent) and Compaq WL100.

If you understand norwegian, see my review at www.dippedutter.net

---
Gaute.

[splintercell]

Well, I hope the WLAN side of 3com boxes has recently improved. Some of their earlier equipment had the unpleasant feature of losing signal if somebody stepped in between the AP and a wireless client. I had never even imagined that possible and haven't experienced it with any other vendor.

[Jason Dunn]

Why use D-link? 3Com has excelent, and not to expensive boxes of fun...

I've had just the opposite experience - a friend of my got some 3COM gear, and it was bad right out of the box. He got Linksys, worked like a charm. I use D-Link, never had any problems.

[Jorj Bauer]

I've seen this problem before (with a D-Link AP, not that it matters). The firmware of the AP had a bug that would produce these exact symptoms when trying to use an Orinoco card with the AP. Any other brand of client adapter worked fine.

I would suggest that you check out the firmware on your AP and upgrade it if there is a later release available from the manufacturer.