[NCLUG] Perplexing wireless issue - Voodoo accepted

[Paul Hummer]

Hey NCLUGers-

  I have an issue with my home wireless I thought you all might be able to help
with.  Yesterday morning, I checked my email and then went out for two hours.
When I came back, NetworkManager was spinning trying to find the network.
Here's where I'm at?

  First, the setup: I have a WRT54GL with Tomato 1.25 running on it.  The
laptop in question is a Thinkpad T61 with an Intel Wireless 3945 PCI card.

  Next, the quest for a solution: I first tried turning it off and turning it
back on again. <it-crowd-joke> I reset the cable modem, router, and rebooted my
laptop.  That didn't fix it.  My other devices were working fine on the network
(PS3, Xbox, other laptops/desktops).  So I then reset the router to Tomato
defaults.  Nothing.  I then hooked up another router through the WRT54GL (a
Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with dd-wrt) and then laptop connected right up.  I then
re-flashed the WRT54GL with Tomato 1.27.  The laptop wouldn't connect.  I
re-flash the WRT54GL with dd-wrt 24SP1 and the laptop wouldn't connect.  I
flashed back to Tomato 1.27.

  The logs on the laptop indicate that it sends the DHCPREQUEST but receives no
DHCPOFFER.  The logs on the router indicate a DHCPOFFER was sent, but no
DHCPACK is received. I tried using wireshark and tcpdump to see if the laptop
was just ignoring the DHCPOFFER packet.  I couldn't get anything conclusive,
but maybe my flags were wrong, or I wasn't looking close enough.

  Here's where it gets weirder.  I changed the MAC address of wireless
interface on the WRT54GL, because it seemed MAC related.  No joy.  That was all
last night.  I started writing this email this afternoon, and thought "What if
I change my laptop wireless interface NIC?"  So I did it.  NetworkManager gets
an IP.  About 5 seconds later, NetworkManager then loses the connection.  If I
change my MAC again, it connects, then loses the connection shortly after.

  Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Paul
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