Seasoned pro needs help -- Opinions please

[ctmagnus]

I've had a wireless setup going for several months without a hitch: WEP, mac filtering, and SSID broadcast disabled. Today, I upgraded my 3670's (PPC2002 EUU3) ROM from 2.14 to 2.20. I downloaded the newest HP wireless drivers (SP22975.exe) and installed them. I could no longer connect to either my BEFW11S4 or WAP11.

I disabled MAC filtering and wep and reenabled SSID broadcast on both devices. The iPaq's Orinoco's MAC is listed in the Active MAC table for the BEFW11S4 but I was not able to do anything wireless.

The Link Test page in the iPaq's wireless settings did not list any access points, even though I could connect to them from the desktop.

:pukeface:

I restored the previous rom and the latest backup and I'm up and running again inside of half an hour.

The one thing that gets me is, all this time, I've been unable to change the WEP key on the BEFW11S4 because, if I do, I cannot access the network wirelessly from the iPaq (the sole wireless device around these parts). The WAP11 is intended for public consumption, eventually.

Here's the part where an opinion is needed:

Is the Orinoco gold or the BEFW11S4 at fault? BEFW11S4 has had several firmware updates applied to it, Orinoco is still on original firmware and second set of drivers.

[Janak Parekh]

Wait a sec, you said HP wireless drivers. Why not Orinoco (or maybe Agere, whom, rumor has it, has newer WinCE drivers for Orinoco PC cards)?

--janak

[ctmagnus]

Wait a sec, you said HP wireless drivers. Why not Orinoco (or maybe Agere, whom, rumor has it, has newer WinCE drivers for Orinoco PC cards)?

--janak

HP was the newest I knew of. Orinoco, last time I checked, had not been updated for a while and I can't find any actual dates for CE drivers on the Agere site.

[Eitel]

The latest Orinoco drivers for Pocket PC are the Spring 2002. They were released in Dec. 20.

http://www.proxim.com/support/all/orinoco/software/dl2002-oricli-wince-sr-02.html

[Kaber]

Did you try the older driver? (http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/handheldiPAQ/us/download/10774.html)

[ctmagnus]

The latest Orinoco drivers for Pocket PC are the Spring 2002. They were released in Dec. 20.

http://www.proxim.com/support/all/orinoco/software/dl2002-oricli-wince-sr-02.html

Are these essentially the same as these (version 7.4) (ftp://ftp.orinocowireless.com/pub/software/ORiNOCO/PC_Card/win_ce/R7.4winter2002/) or are they a year newer? If the former, I already have them. I used them prior to the ones I use now. I'm back up and running with drivers from Lancom, though.

Did you try the older driver? (http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/handheldiPAQ/us/download/10774.html)

Not yet.

I made a full, functioning backup and I'm going to try the new rom again sometime in the next few days.

Something was goofy around here. My usually medium-to-strong signal dropped to nothing for a while.

---

Back to the original question, though, is there any conceivable reason why simply changing wep keys would cause all hell to break loose? In my experience, changing the keys on two functioning devices causes the connection to break.

My experience is that, when the keys are changed, the iPaq will report a good signal and identify the correct channel but will list the AP only by it's mac address and cannot connect to anything.

:confused totally:

[Eitel]

Are these essentially the same as these (version 7.4) or are they a year newer? If the former, I already have them. I used them prior to the ones I use now. I'm back up and running with drivers from Lancom, though.

They are a year newer. In fact, they are just 2 months old.

[Janak Parekh]

My experience is that, when the keys are changed, the iPaq will report a good signal and identify the correct channel but will list the AP only by it's mac address and cannot connect to anything.
That is my experience as well, but I don't use the Linksys APs, just Orinoco units.

--janak

[ctmagnus]

My experience is that, when the keys are changed, the iPaq will report a good signal and identify the correct channel but will list the AP only by it's mac address and cannot connect to anything.
That is my experience as well, but I don't use the Linksys APs, just Orinoco units.

--janak

So Orinocos do that also, or is that your experience of Linksys units?

What's the point of having the ability to change wep keys if nobody can connect to the unit after the keys have been changed? Other than "security".

[ctmagnus]

Eitel:

You RAWK! :rock on dude!:

I can change wep keys now, no problem.

My one complaint is, Orinoco can have multiple wep keys available on their end for easy switching; why can't Linksys?

Also, I have reason to believe I blew my WAP11 in the process. At least it's still under warranty. :)

[Janak Parekh]

So Orinocos do that also, or is that your experience of Linksys units?
Sorry, I wasn't being clear. I meant that if the WEP keys don't match, that's what the iPaq reports. If I change both keys then I'm definitely fine.

But it seems you already fixed your problem. ;)

--janak