# WPC11 v3 won't work during install

## felrodian

I am trying to install gentoo 1.4 rc4 on my Dell Inspiron 5100. I purchased a Linksys WPC11 v3 because I was told by the Best Buy guy that it was Prism2 chipset and would work great in gentoo (he was a gentoo user as well.)

I have installed gentoo (slightly older versions) a few times before, but never with a wireless card, but I do have experience using debian with a wireless card, but it was wavelan ds.

When I boot with dopcmcia it all seems to work, using the prism2_cs module. I need to set the ESSID and WEP key for my network. My wirelss network broadcasts the ESSID (homelan) and uses dhcp for addressing. When I try to dhcpcd wlan0, I get the following error repeated:

```
p80211knetdev_hard_start_xmit: Tx attempt prior to association, frame dropped.
```

I assumed this meant it wasn't connected properly with the AP; WEP key, ssid, etc. So I tried iwconfig wlan0 essid homelan and got the following response:

```
Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) :

      SET failed on device wlan0 ; Function not implemented.
```

This happens when I try to set the WEP key, with a slightly different message.

I don't know what to do. I've done a lot of searching on forums and googling with not much luck. Hopefully someone can help here. Thanks!

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## ben

Hi, could you post the result of

ifconfig -a

iwconfig

Ben

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## felrodian

Thanks for responding. I have to type these in by hand because the wireless card is the only net connection on that box (there is a 10/100 broacomm, but no connection for it):

ifconfig -a:

```

eth0    Linc encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0b:DB:17:06:A0

           inet6 addr: fe80::dob:dbff:fe17:6a0/10 Scope:Link

           UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 METRIC:1

            RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

            TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

            collisions:0 txqueuelen:100

            RX bytes:676 (676.0 b) TX bytesL 1336

            Interrupt:10 Base address:0x4000 Memory:e0204000-e0205080

sit0      Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4

            NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1

            RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

            TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

            collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

            RX bytes:0 Tx bytes:0

tap0    Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr FE:FD:00:00:00:00

           BROADCAST NO ARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

           RX bytes:0 TX bytes:0

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:25:17:66:37

           BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100

          RX bytes:0 TX bytes:0

          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

```

I left out lo because it was standard the serial line eq1 because it seemed irrelevant.

iwconfig:

```

wlan0    IEEE 802.11-b  ESSID:""

             Mode:Auto  Frequency:2.437GHz  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00

             Bit Rate:2Mb/s   Tx-PowerL2346 dBm

             Retry min limit:8  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

             Encryption key:off

             Link quality46/92  Signal level:-63 dBm  Noise level:-97 dbM

             Rx invalid mwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0

             Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0
```

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## ben

So some stupid question first:

Did you put the card back from monitoring mode, may be even by pulling it out and back in?

The Receive level is a bit low, could you try a bit nearer of your access point?

Are you sure you have a dhcp server running, and that your Access Point is a bridge, or that it serves itself dhcp?

Could you try to give your card a fixe IP address? Could you try to ping the dhcp server (just to see if packet are dropped, e.g. result of ifconfig)

HTH

Ben

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## felrodian

I'm not sure what you mean by put the card back from monitoring mode, that is the result from just booting off the 1.4 rc4 stage 1 livecd. I am very near the access point, 2.5 meters perhaps, and I am positive I have a dhcp server running on the access point, it is a Linksys Cable/DSL router w/ 4 port switch and 802.11b AP, and the card works fine in windows.

As for setting the IP address and pinging, I'll try that and post the result.

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## ben

You may also want to have a look at this thread

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=69800

And sorry for monitoring mode, I mixed it up with another thread

HTH

Ben

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## ben

Well, I just get back to my wireless lan and I have 2 main differences

I have a much higher singal to noise ration -75dBm, -125dBm

It goes at 11Mbits/s

So you can try to set the speed to 11Mbits/s and/or to put the ESSID manually through iwconfig (man iwconfig)

Now you said that you don't have a wire connection, though your linksys is also a switch and you have a braodcom eth0. So can you try to disable APIC in the BIOS

HTH

Ben

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## felrodian

I don't know why it's not operating at 11Mb/s

See my first post on what happens when I try to set things manually through iwconfig.

I have a wire connection, but for some reason it won't work. It is connected, properly, to a different switch, connected to the switch on the AP/Router, via a hub. But it works neither in windows nor linux, despite the fact that this PC is connected the exact same way. 

For clarification: Cable ISP comes to their router, then to my AP. From there, the LAN port connects to the cascade port on an 8 port switch, into which various computers are connected, and my hub. Into that hub connects 1) my laptop (doesnt work) and this PC (obviously works). So, I have no clue why that fails. It will DHCP some freaky address totally off my subnet.

What does disable APIC mean?

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## ben

You may have a hardware problem (cabling, collision...), but I would suggest to try disabling APIC first.

APIC is Advanced Programmable Interrups Controller, this is a thing that try to assign automatically IRQs to the various hardware parts of your laptop. You can disable it in the BIOS (press F2 during boot up), or you can put IRQs manually in the BIOS (default should work).

HTH

Ben

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## felrodian

My computer uses a PhoenixBIOS version A02 and I can't find anything about interrupts or APIC

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## ben

Ok bad way,

Let's sum up:

you have a pc with a wire and wireless connection.

none of them work properly

Let's try with the easy one first.

The wire connection (braodcomm, through a hub to a switch/router/AP to the cablemodem)

when cabled, could you post ifconfig -a and lsmod

And to make things simpler, you could move your laptop so as to connect it straight to the linksys router/switch/AP. This will help troubleshoot out part of the wiring.

Ben

----------

