Michael Slater wrote:
> My Toshiba Tecra M1 has an Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Land 3B Mini
> Adaptor... a Centrino Wireless card.
>
> The idea of Centrino is that it has advanced power management -- it
> only spends enough electricity to keep a connection with your wireless
> access point. Ok. Great.
>
> So last week I spent time testing out my access at the various
> Internet hotspots around my office. I could connect to Singtel and
> Starhub just fine. I couldn't connect to Airwarp at all, however.
> [these are Singapore Wireless Hotspot providers] My Intel PROSet
> utility told me I was connected, but I was never allocated an IP from
> their DHCP server.
>
> We went back and forth on this for a while with no success. I did some
> more research myself and found that very, very frequently turning off
> this "Advanced Power Management" and turning power to 100% solved the
> problems. Yep. It sure does. The problem is totally repeatable.
>
> Ok, so that seemed like a fix, although not a very nice one, wasting
> some of the Centrino's advantage.
>
> So today I decided to install a wireless network at my house.
> Presently I have an Efficient Networks SpeedStream DSL modem that
> connects to my PC via a USB port. Then my PC shares an Internet
> Connection (ICS) through its ethernet card to my laptop, connected via
> its ethernet card.
>
> What I wanted was a wireless router that my PC could plug into and my
> laptop could wirelessly connect to.
>
> Since most routers can only talk to the DSL modem via an ethernet
> cable, I had to toss out my USB DSL modem and buy one with an ethernet
> jack instead. I ended up buying a Aztech DSL305E(B) ADSL Ethernet
> Bridge Modem and a NetGear MR814 Cable/DSL Wireless Router (version 1,
> this is not MR814v2).
>
> The Modem is garden variety and Singnet (my DSL provider) approved.
> The Netgear Router is quite popular, and quite common.
>
> First I installed the Aztech. There isn't much installing it. Since
> the router talks directly to it, there is no need for any setup. All I
> did was plug it into power and phone. I did notice that the "DSL"
> light kept blinking -- it never stayed on. This seemed wrong. After
> some tinkering I realized that the noise filter that came included
> with the modem seemed to be interfering. Once I removed it, and
> plugged the cable modem straight into the wall, it worked fine and
> kept a solid green light.
>
> MR814
> Next the Router. It's simple too -- give it power, connect it to the
> Aztech and another ethernet connection to the PC. Configuration is
> done via a web interface to a specific IP address the router listens
> to. It's accessible by both wireless and wired connections. I started
> out by configuring it with my PC. The configuration is very easy.
> Basically you just tell it your name/password with Singnet. The rest
> is roughly automatic.
>
> One thing that does annoy me, though, is that my PC doesn't seem to
> immediately get access to the web. It seems to take some time to get
> an IP and DNS servers allocated to it. I am not sure if I had used the
> wizard included on the CD (which I didn't use) if some sort of
> "Connect to Internet" icon would have been created that I could use to
> force an immediate connection to the internet. Any ideas?
>
> But that turns out to be the least of my irritations. The wireless
> situation is infuriating.
>
> Essentially I am having the exact same problem I had with the airwarp
> network. I ostensibly connect to it fine, with a nice strong signal,
> but the router and laptop absolutely refuse to exchange an IP and DNS
> address to use. I have been through every fix I can think of or find.
>
> Drivers and Firmware.
>
> I've tried two different MR814 firmwares: 4.13 and 4.14rc2
>
> I've upgraded to Toshiba's latest wireless driver, 1.6.0.46
>
> (The current firmware version of the laptop's 802.11b appears to be
> 4.2-41.01 but I don't know how/where I would ever upgrade that. I
> haven't seen anything on it.
>
> Settings
>
> I've disabled Windows XP's 'Zero Configuration Service' so that it
> doesn't interfere with Intel's wireless control software
>
> I've changed the channel the 802.11b works on.
>
> I've made sure the 802.1x Protocol is disabled on both the router and
> the laptop.
>
> I never installed the q815485 hotfix to windows, so that shouldn't be
> a problem.
>
> People suggest "Disabled "Use windows to configure my wireless
> settings" but I cannot find where this setting is located (and anyway,
> I guess this is the same as disabling the Zero Config service?)
>
> I've changed to 64-bit WEP from 128-bit
>
> I've verified that they're using the same key (#1) in both the router
> and the Intel ProSet utility..
>
> So what I've found is, the only way for this to work is if I turn off
> the WEP security entirely! If I leave it an open network, then it
> works just fine.
>
> But of course, this is a stupid solution, because I don't feel like
> giving my condominium and drive-by hackers a free internet connection.
> I guess I could lock down the system via MAC addresses, but I really
> would just prefer for this stupid thing to work with WEP, like it
> should.
>
> Ideas?
Yeah, I have one - ditch Netgear and get a real router/AP. I had the
same problem and for $40 I paid for the piece of $*it it was not worth
to tinker with it.
Did you try calling support? You should try it - it's a real treat!
Seriously though here is a link that talks about this:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/equip,9
Do a search for mr814 and Centrino.
I took the easy way out: bought ZyXel B-2000 and never looked back. Do
yourself a favor and stay away from consumer grade equipment (Netgear,
Dlink, Linksys.) Get ZyXel ($), Orinoco (Proxim) ($$) or Cisco ($$$)
Lac
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