works on desk computer but not on wireless laptop

Hi,

I'm in the middle of writing a post about the old Mac laptop i posted
about earlier. In short, I had the browser working for a half hour
and then I had to go out.

Now, a couple days later, I wanted to use it some more. With the
browser, iCab, I'm getting a Network error #3221. Netscape isn't
doing anything, but I hadn't tried it before.

So to compare I plugged in my own laptop, an IBM Thinkpad 600E, and
tried it. I can get my eamil, although it got interrupted once and
didn't finish until the second try. There was 4 days of email and it
retrieved it all. But I have about 15 tabs open in Firefox, and I
only retrieved one of them.

A) I can understand that email (which comes from my old ISP) might
work, and browsing (which comes from Verizon) might not, at the same
time. I can even understand if they came from the same ISP. (I had
that several times)

B) What I don't understand is, How can the Firefox browser on my desk
computer work, and the Firefox browser (same version) on my laptop not
work? I know I have a wireless connection because I can get email.
(and the wireless program in my laptop says I have 100% link and 100%
signal strength.

C) My friend's laptop is five feet farther away now, but when it was
next to my router, I had a 75% connection. Now its about 50%. Is
that too weak? It's new to user Orinoco Wavelan wireless card and is
about 6 or 8 years old and has a jack for an antenna. Do I need one?
(Can I make my own, like I do with TV? There is no time left to go
buy one.) I would like to compare the browser with email, but setting
up the email seems like more trouble than it's worth. And it worked
for a while.

Both wireless cards are b, although the router sends b and g.

(I myself have a g card too, but the software needs to be
reinstalled.)

If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

mm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm in the middle of writing a post about the old Mac laptop i posted
> about earlier. In short, I had the browser working for a half hour
> and then I had to go out.

> C) My friend's laptop is five feet farther away now, but when it was
> next to my router, I had a 75% connection. Now its about 50%. Is
> that too weak? It's new to user Orinoco Wavelan wireless card and is
> about 6 or 8 years old and has a jack for an antenna. Do I need one?
> (Can I make my own, like I do with TV? There is no time left to go
> buy one.) I would like to compare the browser with email, but setting
> up the email seems like more trouble than it's worth. And it worked
> for a while.
>
> Both wireless cards are b, although the router sends b and g.
Are you sure the Wavelan is 802.11b as some of the early ones were built
prior to the 802.11b standard. e.g PC24E-H-FC FCCID IMRWLPCE24H

"mm" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> B) What I don't understand is, How can the Firefox browser on my desk
> computer work, and the Firefox browser (same version) on my laptop not
> work? I know I have a wireless connection because I can get email.
> (and the wireless program in my laptop says I have 100% link and 100%
> signal strength.
>

They have different settings in someway. Have you tried a different browser
and the problem follows?

On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:21:41 +0100, LR <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>mm wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm in the middle of writing a post about the old Mac laptop i posted
>> about earlier. In short, I had the browser working for a half hour
>> and then I had to go out.
>
>> C) My friend's laptop is five feet farther away now, but when it was
>> next to my router, I had a 75% connection. Now its about 50%. Is
>> that too weak? It's new to user Orinoco Wavelan wireless card and is
>> about 6 or 8 years old and has a jack for an antenna. Do I need one?
>> (Can I make my own, like I do with TV? There is no time left to go
>> buy one.) I would like to compare the browser with email, but setting
>> up the email seems like more trouble than it's worth. And it worked
>> for a while.
>>
>> Both wireless cards are b, although the router sends b and g.
>Are you sure the Wavelan is 802.11b as some of the early ones were built
>prior to the 802.11b standard. e.g PC24E-H-FC FCCID IMRWLPCE24H

I checked again, and it says Supports IEEE802.11b High Rate
2.4GHz DSSS


For the record:
With a S/N, T/N, SP#, AS#, and MAC address and FCC ID.

It says Encryption: 128RC4, but my network doesn't use encryption,
only Mac filtering and I turned that off.

It's actually labelled by Compaq, but the vendor's ad showed pictures
of several brands, all the same thing he said.

It says Agere Systems.

And it did retrieve a few webpages.

BTW, my own laptop FireFox is working today.

And the Orinoco software installed without trouble and shows the 75 or
50% signal strength, depending on where the laptop is sitting.

And the software shows the same list of wireless networks that my
neighbor's have, and when I select mine, it shows the MAC id of my
router.

So no wonder you suspect the protocol, since I guess that's all that's
left, but....

If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:37:39 -0400, "Mr. Arnold" <MR.
(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>"mm" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> Hi,
>>
>> B) What I don't understand is, How can the Firefox browser on my desk
>> computer work, and the Firefox browser (same version) on my laptop not
>> work? I know I have a wireless connection because I can get email.
>> (and the wireless program in my laptop says I have 100% link and 100%
>> signal strength.
>>
>
>They have different settings in someway. Have you tried a different browser
>and the problem follows?

I didn't try any other, but I was going to after I read your post, but
I started the laptop and tried FireFox and it works fine now.

So confusing, and frustrating. And so time-consuming when I'm trying
to test.

So I tried my friend's macintosh, both iCab and Netscape 7 and
neither work. (I think Netsape was already on the computer when I
bought it.)


I wonder if this is relevant. In order to recheck if the car was 11b,
i stopped the relevant software, Orinoco, and ejected the card. I
looked at the card and put it in again, and tried to restart Orinoco,
and I got a message that the card or a driver was missing. I had
afaik downloaded the relevant drivers and installed them already
(details if you need them.)

So I restarted the whole computer and the Orinoco software starts fine
and shows a 55% signal strength. When I hold it right next to the
router, it shows 90% but still didn't load the page.

If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

A note to the computer owner, who leaves on a long trip tomorrow, with
this computer if it works. Arnold, this email includes, towards the
end, instructions that you might have to do. If you have your desk
computer set not to delete the mail from your server, you can download
this and previous emails to your laptop when you pick it up.

If you don't have it set that way, you should set it to not delete
emails until say 3 days after you look at them. Then you can find the
technical emails I've sent you and reply or forward them to yourself,
and download all your email to your laptop, which is easier than
copying everything by hand. Or you could print them out too from your
desk computer.

On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:27:15 -0400, mm <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I'm in the middle of writing a post about the old Mac laptop i posted
>about earlier. In short, I had the browser working for a half hour
>and then I had to go out.

OKAY, I think I might have found the problem now.

Does anyone here know Macintosh? It might help, but maybe it's not
needed.

Because I earlier had to make changes in the TCP/IP control panel, I
entered the TCP/IP control panel and it said that the connection had
been changed to Ethernet (but not by me), and I looked at the list of
choices it could be, and I think I had changed it to Orinoco the last
time (and that is the software for this wireless card).

So I changed it to Orinoco again, and then a box opens up that wants
to know how to configure.

The drop down menu gave the choices of using the bootIP server, the
RARP server, the DHCP server, or manually?

Manually wants to know a bunch of other stuff, and the only
abbreviation I recognized is DHCP.

So I chose that and now it wants to know the DHCP Client ID.

What is that?

I'm using a D-Link router, Number 524 I think, and I went to the
Home/DHCP page, and it's enabled, and it has starting IP address and
an ending address,

and a provision for a fixed IP address, that I didn't use because the
default was the one above. But that section has a box labeled DHCP
Client!! And a 12 character number like a Mac ID. Prefixed by OEM
Computer. By OEM, do they mean the computer it is hardwired to, or
what? and is this the number I'm supposed to put in the MAC
software?**

Well I put it in and saved it (by clicking on the exit box in the
upper left corner--it does have a great help system that when started,
puts instruction in a box in the lower left and makes red "magic
marker" lines around the box you're supposed to fill in, for example.
If you have turned on "balloons".

So it's working again now, but it sure wasn't obvious. And one of
Mac's selling points is that it's easy to use, iirc.


Now, what is he supposed to do in a netcafe. He won't know the DHCP
client number will he? and neither will the guy running the cafe. He
can do it manually but then I think he has to fill in the IP number,
and maybe the submask number and a couple other numbers. What do
people with Macintosh or maybe it's Orinoco do?

Thinking back, when I got this working the first time, I didn't enter
any DHCP client number. And I didn't click on that little box on the
upper left. I don't remember how I got out of that box, although I
think another box oened up. And maybe that had Save and Cancel
buttons. Or maybe I never got out and maybe that never saved it so it
only worked for that session??? OTOH, isn't it a general principle of
computers that just typing a number in a field won't do anything until
the number is saved somehow?


** Below on the Dynmamic DHCP Client List on my software, they also
list the OEM computer, plus 6 other entries all with different MAC
addresses. The OEM computer MAC address is the same as the DHCP
client number above. I'll have to check out the other 5 entries, but
one is the Macintosh I'm working on. That's before I got the computer
working today.

BTW, Arnie, even if this all works, if you are at a place with a
network cable but no wireless, it sounds like you will have to go into
Control Panels/TCP-IP control Panel, and then change your source to
Ethernet. I don't if it asks questions after that, and I don't want
to try it yet. But if you click on the ? mark, the Help process
starts.

I'll ask on a Macintosh ng and try to get specific answers if no one
on the wireless newsgroup knows. I wonder if That Bloke is reading.

I wonder if this would be easier with a newer Mac OS. Not at all sure
it would be. Maybe it will seem easy after we're used to it, but
with the IBM laptop, I could go from the cable to the wireless with no
changes other than plugging and unplugging the cable. AT least I think
I could.



If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

Just get a new card with decent drivers. In the end your time wasted will
far exceed the cost of a new card.