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• Jackson Rogers

  

  • 3 posts
   

  July 10, 2012 6:49 PM PDT

  I am using an old Inspiron 4100 I installed wattos R5 after having had many problems with lubuntu. so far i like it but I am having a problem using wifi, when I click on my network connections icon at the bottom right of the screen I see my wireless router's SSID when I click on it I wait for about 30 seconds and then a window pops up asking for the wireless network key. After i type in the key the window disappears and the network connection icon looks busy, after about 30 seconds the same window pops up asking for the wireless network key again, and the cycle keeps repeating. The only way that I can get on the internet is thru an ethernet cable. If I can't get this problem fixed i'm throwing this thing away. Can anyone please help? 

  PS. I am new to linux so a step by step would be very helpful.

• Douglas Willett

  

  • 70 posts
   

  July 10, 2012 8:01 PM PDT

  You could try installing some firmware. Synaptic offers a broad choice. I'd start with b43. See http://douwil7.100webspace.net/linux/Tuning.html#18 for more information.
• Jackson Rogers

  

  • 3 posts
   

  July 10, 2012 9:21 PM PDT

  nope, that didn't work. After I installed b43 I tried to connect and the same thing happend, so I rebooted and tried again with the same results.
• Douglas Willett

  

  • 70 posts
   

  July 10, 2012 10:16 PM PDT

  lspci | grep -i ethernet in terminal should identify your network card. "Firmware" in synaptic search should produce about 20 different choices. Try installing the one that most closely matches your ethernet card.
• Jackson Rogers

  

  • 3 posts
   

  July 11, 2012 2:26 AM PDT

  jax@jax-Inspironlaptop:~$ lspci | grep -i ethernet
  02:00.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
• Douglas Willett

  

  • 70 posts
   

  July 11, 2012 10:16 AM PDT

  Doesn't seem to be a recognizable match. Maybe just install all of them - I notice that I have 18 firmwares installed on the system I'm on at the moment. I don't recall installing any of them, so they must have been included with the operating system (Mint Debian).
• teejay .

  

  • 59 posts
   

  July 16, 2012 12:23 AM PDT

  @Jackson :
  Are you sure this is your wireless card ? I recall 3C905 as a wired ethernet card.
  A quick search suggests Inspiron 4100 (and more Dell machines) had an Agere Orinoco card, which might show up as pci or pcmcia.
  In a Terminal : sudo lshw -network
  might show this quickly.
  If you want to pursue drivers, the ones most mentioned are orinoco_cs and FullMAC (on linuxwireless.org).
  
  However ....
  Your original post suggests you've got wifi initial connect - seems like an authentication fail. Have you previously been able to connect from the 4100 wirelessly to this router ?
  I suggest you look for non-matching settings. For example, does the router expect WPA and the (older ?) 4100 provide only WEP ?
  
  Biff was adept at wifi problems in earlier releases - hope he stops by here soon for you.