Wireless - "waiting for the network"

[CHR1S]

So yet more WiFiFun,

 

Have a USB dongle in a PC that I just banged in to get it on tinternet......

Was working fine, set up a WEP only SSID as its a bit old to support anything else and it happliy connected to the domain, pulled down updates restarted then just seemed to give up...

 

It finds the networks but whenever I try to connect I just get "waiting for the network" forever and a day.

 

Ive removed the drivers and re-installed, removed the WEP on the SSID, restarted the AP, Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults (netsh winsock reset catalog), Reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults (netsh int ip reset reset.log) and If I could find a partridge in a pear tree id try that too!!

 

Help please, im going mad!!

[Michael]

ipconfig /flushdns

then reboot

[CHR1S]

Same problem

[Michael]

Update the wireless drivers and configure a static IP.

[CHR1S]

Do you know, this is all down to DHCP just like the other issues, it has to be. Were ruling everything else out. Ive just checked the DHCP and there is no reservation for the PC and nothing in DNS. What could be stopping it?

[Michael]

Hmm well in a wireless situation the wrong password for a secure network would prevent it getting an address from DHCP. Do you have more than one DHCP server? Presumably DHCP is disabled on your access points as it looks to one or more of your DCs?

[CHR1S]

Single DHCP, No AP DHCP, primary and secondary DNS addresses are present.

 

For testing I have removed the seconday DNS and will see if its any better

[Michael]

Generally speaking if you have two DCs with DNS you may as well have two DHCP's. You just need to enable 'Conflict detection attempts' and set it to 1 or more.

[CHR1S]

Our Admin PCs are all set with static IPs, we are still on a 2 domain network Admin and Curr

[Michael]

I don't think that should make any difference as to whether there's an Admin and Curric network as I presume they're on the same Subnet? You could still implement a secondary DHCP Server.

 

Is it the same Cisco AP you had problems with last week?

[CHR1S]

Yep the very same... ive just checked the DNS and the IP for the AP isnt present, yet its still serving up the tinternet for me right now. Cant get my head round this at all, somethings gone screwy!

[Michael]

Well thinking about it, the AP has a static IP and it could forward requests directly to external DNS servers (for internet traffic). You'd just need to add your internal DNS servers so DHCP works. This is what I think is happening.

[CHR1S]

They are set tho, on the AP I mean - Static IP outside of the DHCP scope, subnet, Defaut Gateway and Primary DNS (the Primary DNS then has all the upstream DNS servers)

[CHR1S]

There is definatly something screwy with this AP, no matter what time I set manually or what NTP server I use it never changes the time, it just stays at what u put.

[Michael]

So if you move around school and attempt to connect to another AP does it work OK? The fact you had problems last week with the same AP it could well be faulty.

[CHR1S]

Grrrr, did a factory reset on the AP and its gone! Not even on its default IP (192.168.1.245) and yes I have joined the same subnet and given the NIC an IP in its range and turned off the proxy.

[maniac]

Silly suggestion, have you tried it in a different USB port?

 

I had a simelar problem, which I in-advertantly solved by changing the USB port the dongle was plugged in. I have no idea why it should make any difference, but it certainly seemed to solve the problem I was having.

 

Mike.

[CHR1S]

Rang Cisco who said oh dear have a brand new one! Result (no really they said that)

 

Great customer support.

 

Thanks all for your help again, we need a "Pints Owed" system instead of Rep!!

[Michael]

Just glad you got it sorted Chris