Wireless Connectivity Issues on Domain

[Derek Stewart]

We're having a very frustrating issue on a new wireless implementation we've
setup at one of our high schools.

We have a 140 HP 6515B laptops running XP SP2 connecting to cisco access
points using WEP encryption. All the 32 access points are centerally managed
by cisco software and use one seemless SSID across all of them. The laptops
have the WEP key entered and saved to them and they've all be successfully
connected to the WAP. The Microsoft Wireless Zero client is handling all the
wireless configuration on the laptops.

The issue we have is about 75% of the time after you shut down or reboot the
laptop it fails to connect to the WAP at the login screen. You just keep
getting "No Domain Could Be Found", the same error you'd receive if your hard
wire PC was disconnected from the ethernet cable. If the user has logged in
sucesfully before it lets them in on a cached account, then it triggers the
wireless and it will connect after the cached login. The user can then log
out and anyone can log in, cached or non-cached. Its like the Wireless Zero
client isn't connecting up at the log in screen, but instead needs a user
logged in first to trigger the connection to the WAP. What really drives me
and my technicans nuts is thats not always consistent, sometimes it will work
right at bootup, but most of the time it won't. We've tried the latest
drivers and firmware for the wireless NIC also.

Is there any special configurations you have to make to enable wireless on a
laptop joined to a domain? Some setting that triggers connectivity it at the
login screen? Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Derek

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

I only have a few points in my home system, but it's likely that your
trouble is in some ways similar to what I experienced.
Long story short, set the device properties of the ethernet card to half
duplex..

It seems that full duplex causes the machine to think it doesn't see a
network because the response is faster than it anticipates, kind of like
talking to each other at once, both sides ignoring the other. Half duplex
(like saying 'over' on a short wave radio) seems to let mine understand the
other. This problem is especially bad with Vista machines.

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Mark L. Ferguson

..

 

[smlunatick]

I only have a few points in my home system, but it's likely that your
trouble is in some ways similar to what I experienced.
Long story short, set the device properties of the ethernet card to half
duplex..

It seems that full duplex causes the machine to think it doesn't see a
network because the response is faster than it anticipates, kind of like
talking to each other at once, both sides ignoring the other. Half duplex
(like saying 'over' on a short wave radio) seems to let mine understand the
other. This problem is especially bad with Vista machines.

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Mark L. Ferguson









- Show quoted text -

I have yet to see any "duplex" controls for any "wireless" adapters.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

The routers are connected by wire and ethernet cards to some machines and
each other.

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Mark L. Ferguson

..

I have yet to see any "duplex" controls for any "wireless" adapters.

 

[smlunatick]

The routers are connected by wire and ethernet cards to some machines and
each other.

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Mark L. Ferguson



I have yet to see any "duplex" controls for any "wireless" adapters.

Most router are "unmanaged" and would not have any "duplex" settings.
The OP is asking about wireless connectivity issues.

 

[Derek Stewart]

Just to clarify, adjusting the ethernet card duplex settings will help with
my wireless issues? These laptops don't jack into the network at all,
they're entirely wireless. One thing I do know is that entirely disabling
the hard wired ethernet cards didn't help the issue either.

Derek

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

One possibility was that some of the net was wired. If they are all
wireless, you should probably be looking at something else. My system has
all it's servers on wire, and all my clients wireless. I disabled full
duplex on the server ethernet cards and the Vista clients started finding my
net.
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Mark L. Ferguson

..