802.11b - Arrrrghhhhhhh!!!!! STILL UNRESOLVED

[VisionIT]

We have just bought and configured a Zonet ZEW1000 and ZEW2000PU wireless network, to fit into our current setup like this...

Laptop:
1 x RJ45 (DHCP)
1 x PCMCIA RTL8180 802.11b 11Mbps WLAN (Static)

Server:
1 x RJ45 (Static w/ICS)
1 x RJ45 (DHCP Broadband)
1 x USB 802.11b 11Mbps Hub (Ad-hoc)

We are running without a WAP hub, as the laptop does not need access to the network, only the internet.

The laptop can't ping the server, but the server CAN ping the laptop. The server can see the NetBIOS, the laptop can't! The laptop can't go on the internet, the server logs a connection attempt!

If i disable the other NIC's (wired) the wireless LAN connects first time.... every time! Re-enable the NIC's, and it stops immediately. I'm 802.11 away from throwing this out of the damn window. Zonet's technical support is none existant, and the driver packs are buggy.

DON'T BUY ZONET PRODUCTS, IT'S NOT WORTH THE HASSLE

Anyone else had trouble with an ad-hoc network? Infrastructure mode is not supported without the WLAN WAP.

Regards,

Paul.

[VisionIT]

*bump*

[ZeroCool]

whats the laptops OS?

[VisionIT]

XP Home

Don't worry m8... i've taken the cards back now anyway.

Cheers...

[Sastraxi]

Home? Pfft

[matheson]

just for future reference,

sometimes with 802.11x wireless client cards static ip addresses may have to be set,
windows cannot always resolve dns host names and dynamic network settings through the wireless..

huge problem i have seen here through 802.11a but static ips fixed it

[VisionIT]

Originally posted by matheson
just for future reference,

sometimes with 802.11x wireless client cards static ip addresses may have to be set,
windows cannot always resolve dns host names and dynamic network settings through the wireless..

huge problem i have seen here through 802.11a but static ips fixed it

I agree.

Windows always defaults to static NIC's to bind to a DNS address... so the 802.11a/b/g cards do suffer! It's worse with 2 or more NIC's running DHCP and static.

If you need to run DHCP on your 802.11 cards, setup a batch file with

ipconfig /release [adaptor]
ipconfig /renew [adaptor]

... and place it into your startup directory. Be sure to add "Close on Exit" though... cause it will be a pain otherwise!

Now i've returned the cards... i'm looking into other types of WiFi media which are more stable. Cisco comes to mind!

Thanks for the help everyone, and Sastraxi... XP Home's not that bad! *Paul formats the drive and has an XP Pro CD to hand*

[matheson]

also you will probably find if you are using a wireless access point/hub you can set it to be a dhcp server to the wireless cards

this is something i found out with the smc acess points anyways