My Wifi is Cursed

August 6, 2007 6:08 PM

I'm having strange Wireless issues. I've tried two PCI cards (they were both LINKSYS WMP11 PCI Wireless-B Adapter) and a USB dongle (Netgear WG111T USB) in Windows XP and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. Any time I get to the point where the wireless connection is being made, the computer completely freezes. No keyboard or mouse response at all. I have to shut the computer's power off. Any suggestions?

More tech details:

The Wifi Router I'm trying to connect to:

LINKSYS WRT54G IEEE 802.3/3u, IEEE 802.11b/g Wireless-G Broadband Router. I'm running WPA PSK encryption on the AP.

I had the same problem with two of the Linksys PCI Cards on two different boxes. However, I've had no problem connecting various laptops to this access point.

Right now I'm restricted to Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) but I'm willing to use the PCI card or the USB dongle. Either way, I just want this to work. I had configured the PCI card and the USB adapter with ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant.

posted by bofe to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

Wireless network drivers are often buggy, and because drivers run inside the OS kernel, buggy ones can bring your entire OS down. You're using ndiswrapper in Feisty, so you're actually relying on the same network drivers in both systems.

If I were you, I'd be trying the latest drivers available from the manufacturers' websites, and if that didn't work, I'd be getting yet another wireless card - preferably one supported by open-source drivers.
posted by flabdablet at 6:35 AM on August 31, 2007