Wireless card wont get IP

I got a new CWP-854 wireless card with separate antenna off ebay a few days ago. Eventually, I got the card working in linux by compiling the driver module for the ralink rt61 chipset. Now it sometimes doesn't work, sometimes does. At first it worked, I could go online fine. Then I had problems getting an IP from my router via DHCP.

It should go like this:

Code:

modprobe rt61
ifconfig ra0 inet up
dhclient ra0

That worked first time, and every now and again it works. But mostly it doesn't.

The driver is fine, so is the settings as I can access my router wirelessly via the ip address if I use a static ip with

Code:

ifconfig ra0 192.168.0.10

instead. So I have connectivity, but communications break down when I try to use DHCP.

On using the dhclient command, it starts sending DHCPREQUEST packets, and when that fails it switches to DHCPDISCOVER and tries over and over again but eventually gives a timed out error. Now why is it that I have connectivity with a static IP (can't go online because of no DNS servers) but when I try to get a manual IP address via DHCP theres no communication?

My laptop only a few feet away is running XP Pro SP2, and the funny thing is that connects fine. No problems.

Edit: I just tried it in windows XP, and I get the same problem with DHCP. Seems like a hardware issue. Signal strength is fine though.

 

Type this into a terminal as root:

Code:

/etc/init.d/network restart

Works in SuSE, can't guarantee it will work in Mandriva

 

Unfortunately that only restarts the network script to bring up the interfaces. DHCP still doesn't work . I'll try some more stuff when I get back from school.

 

Well I seem to have semi fixed it.

I never actually fixed the DHCP problem, and may never know. but my current fix seems to be satisfactory. I had simply assigned an IP address statically, but forgot to add the default gateway :embarassed:. So when I did that, and updatd the /etc/resolv.conf file with DNS servers it was ok.

I really don't know if this is just me, but I seem to get a strange, pleasant feeling when I'm updating my system. It sounds weird but I like updating packages!