Re: Aironet 1100 - Compaq/HP Laptop Connection issues

jvincent · ‎03-09-2004

We have approx. 40 Aironet 1100 APs for student use. We are having a group of students have connection issues, and the common element is that they have either a Compaq or HP laptop. I have recently upgraded all of the APs to 12.2(13)JA3, and we are still having the problem. The students seem to have a good signal, but traffic is very unreliable.

I have a Vircom Radius server that does MAC address authentication. No WEP. On some of the machines, we have even installed external Linksys USB wireless network adapters, and the problems are still showing up, although reportadely, not as bad.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

amitubale · ‎03-09-2004

Could you give some more information about the problems. Have you tried using 802.11 sniffer to analyse the traffic ?

jvincent · ‎03-11-2004

Thanks for the reply,

It is a little difficult to describe because it is intermittant. Basically, we have noticed on pretty much all Comapq laptops (usually Presario 2100) that our students will sometime lose their wireless conneciton for a few seconds, and then it comes back up. It seems to be more of an issue when they are not extremely close to one of the APs, but not too far where it should be a problem.

One other thing that we seem to see is that the speed will frequently fluxuate between 1.0 and 11.0, even when they are fairly close to the AP. I just figured that seeing most of the problems are on the same brand of PC, that something had to be up.

Basically, the signal is just not reliable. The only tests that I have run so far have been some ping tests to test connectivity, and quite a few of the pings are dropped.

I have Ethereal that I could use to capture some traffic from the offending machines.

Let me know if you have any more questions. We have advised our students that we are working on the issue.

Thanks again!

jvincent · ‎03-11-2004

Hi again...

One more thing. The AP Event log usually shows the following messages, sometimes many times a minute...

1st: Packet to client 0030.bd92.1b32 reached max retries, removing the client

2nd: Interface Dot11Radio0, Deauthenticating Station 0030.bd92.1b32 Reason: Previous authentication no longer valid

3rd: Interface Dot11Radio0, Station 0030.bd92.1b32 Reassociated KEY_MGMT[NONE]

These error messages are repeated over and over again on the AP for the problem PCs...

Just in case that helps

Report Inappropriate Content · ‎04-02-2004

Hello

I am also having a problem with the AP1100's and the error message "Interface Dot11Radio0, Deauthenticating Station 0030.bd92.1b32 Reason: Previous authentication no longer valid "

This happens within 5 minutes of booting the laptop and connecting to the AP1100. The only way to reauthenticate is to reboot the laptop.

I am using a Gateway laptop with a onboard Actiontec 802.11b wireless card. The laptop is running XP, fully patched. The only way I can recover from this problem is to reboot the laptop.

Do you know who manufactures the wireless card in those laptops?

tbalon · ‎04-28-2004

I have the same problem with my AP 350. It all started after the upgrade to IOS. None of my Orinoco card will hold an assocation long. They keep dying with max retries exceeded. Unless I'm right next to the AP, the rate drops to 1Mbs. My Cisco radio card does better, but even it looses it's association. Again, this did not happen when I was running VxWorks, only since upgrading to IOS.

I just updated again last night to 12.2(15) with no change. Ugh...

ddanco · ‎04-29-2004

We are having the same exact problem. We are running 12.2(13)JA3 and all laptops that have built in wireless are having problems connecting to the 1100. But any laptop that has a Cisco card in it works just fine. Any ideas?