Wireless AD Hoc and Dialup LAN connection Problem

[smconstable]

I have a laptop computer with a linksys wireless 802.11b PC card. I can establish an ad hoc connection with my Ipaq 5450. If I'm connected to a dialup server I cannot not get an ad-hoc wireless connection with my Ipaq. As soon as I hang up -- :x :x I get an ad-hoc connection. There must be a simple solution. Does anybody know one?

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

If I'm connected to a dialup server I cannot not get an ad-hoc wireless connection with my Ipaq.
...when you're connected to a dial-up server with your PC or PPC?

[smconstable]

When my laptop is connected to the dialup server, I try to establish a ad-hoc connection for synchronizing outlook, worldmate, email and avantgo. It will not recognize the ipaq. I can sync with a USB cable or cradle during a dialup connection -- No problem. I'm trying to travel as lite as I can and get rid of the cables and cradles.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

When my laptop is connected to the dialup server, I try to establish a ad-hoc connection for synchronizing outlook, worldmate, email and avantgo. It will not recognize the ipaq. I can sync with a USB cable or cradle during a dialup connection -- No problem. I'm trying to travel as lite as I can and get rid of the cables and cradles.
I'm a consultant constantly travelling around the globe, so I can certainly relate to the importance of going light.

Personally, I haven't had issues with my ad-hoc connection being broken when my laptop dials into a dial-up server. Under either circumstance, I'm able to exchange files and sync via ActiveSync. What I haven't been able to do is actually connect to the internet using my PPC while my laptop is dialed into a dial-up server (haven't researched this enough to know whether it's possible or not). I'm using a DLink DWL650 PC Card in my laptop and a Socket Low-Power WIFI CF in my PPC.

One thing to consider is that a WiFi connection (whether ad-hoc or infrastructure) is fundamentally a network-based connection, as opposed to USB/IR/BlueTooth, which are really serial-based connections. My best guess to your issue is that your laptop is disabling network connectivity while dialed into the internet as a security measure (if that's the case, the there *should* be a way to configure the laptop OS to not do this).

[Janak Parekh]

Two important questions:

1. What's the IP addresses on the ad-hoc connection?
2. What OS are you using?

For #1, you generally want to use so-called "private" IP's to address your two machines. Otherwise, your dial-up connection's default gateway might supercede the ad-hoc route...

For #2, Win2k/XP tend to deal much better with multiple network connections.

--janak

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

FWIW, on my ad-hoc setup, I didn't configure the TCP/IP settings on either the laptop or the PPC...

My laptop is running win2k...

[Janak Parekh]

FWIW, on my ad-hoc setup, I didn't configure the TCP/IP settings on either the laptop or the PPC...
That probably means you're using 169.254.* addresses. While these will work, they generally take some time to resolve.

--janak