Re: ad-hoc between different types of cards

Hi,

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Dilip joseph wrote:

> We are trying to set up an ad-hoc network between a
> Linksys WUSB11 ver 2.6 wireless card (Linux
> 2.4.18,at76c503 ver 10) and a USRobotics 802.11b
> PCMCIA card on Linux 2.4.18-3 (hostAP 0.0.3 driver),
> as part of a student project.  Although both cards are
> set to ad-hoc mode, same essid and channel, we are
> unable to ping one machine from one another.  Would
> some one please help?
>
>
> Our USRobotics card gave the following iwconfig
> output:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"test"
>           Mode:Ad-Hoc  Frequency:2.437GHz  Cell:
> 00:00:00:00:00:00
>           Bit Rate:2Mb/s   Tx-Power:-3 dBm
> Sensitivity=1/3
>           Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment
> thr:off
>           Encryption key:off
>           Power Management:off
>           Link Quality:0/92  Signal level:-90 dBm
> Noise level:-90 dBm
>           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx
> invalid frag:0
>           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0
> Missed beacon:0
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Then we started the atmel driver on the other machine
> with USB wireless card.  The iwconfig output was as
> follows:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> wlan0     IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:"test"
>           Mode:Ad-Hoc  Channel:6  Cell:
> 02:00:A7:90:FE:DC
>           Bit Rate=2Mb/s
>           RTS thr=1536 B   Fragment thr=1536 B
>           Encryption key:off
>           Power Management:off
>           Link Quality:0  Signal level:77  Noise
> level:0
>           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx
> invalid frag:0
>           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0
> Missed beacon:0
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> We noticed that CELL, signal levels and noise levels
> are different in the 2 cards.
>
> We then looked at the syslog output after setting
> "iwpriv wlan0 set_debug 0x180003" as mentioned on the
> website. We found that our USRobotics card was not
> even detected in the BSS table on the device startup.
> The dmesg output is given below.
>
> Is it likely that the two cards are incompatible or is
> there any other problem with configuration?  Kindly
> help.

Is your USRobotics is Prism2 based?

First try the other way around - start the Atmel USB adapter first.

Check the firmware in the USRobotics - old Prism2 firmware
is known for buggy ad-hoc mode (see some discussions in the wlan-ng
mailing lists). Try to update it (google should provide pointer).

/Jörg