wifi card will not connect

I agree that it looks like a WEP problem.

I found a cell with encryption turned off.  It listed ESSID as "Uncecure - make yours the same".  I used that as the essid and a blank WEP key.   Still no luck.

I will take it by the local coffee shop this afternoon and see if I can connect.

By using the GUIs I managed to get it to recognized an Access Point.  Look at "iwconfig" above.  It's 00:00:00:00:00:00.

I got it to show an address for Access Point in "iwconfig".

Notice "Rx invalid nwid:13344" in "iwconfig" above.  I am assuming that means "network ID".  It also says "excessive retrys".  is there a config file someplace to correct that?

I am begining to think the WEP has been reset.  I don't think thats possible since my wife's laptop would not connect if the WEP was reset.

Something very strange is going on.

I went to a local cafe and was able to "connect" to their unsecured server.  "Iwconfig" showed an
address for the access point.  "Ifconfig" showed their ip address.  I could ping into their server. But - firefox would not connect - said it could not find the server.  Lights on card did not indicate card was connected.

I got home and tried again.  Now I have the same problem with the wired connection.  "Ifconfig" shows my local ip address.  I can ping into my other machine - but - firefox will not connect - says it can't find the server.

Wif card still will not work.

"Lspci" shows the card to be an Atheros AR5212.

"Lsmod | grep ath_pci" shows ath_pci (unused).

If I do "ifconfig ath0 up" then "lsmod" shows ath_pci as being used.

SO - I know that the system recognizes the card, the driver is installed, and I can lturn the card  "on" and "off".

I saw a post that said use dhcpcd to configure ath0.  Since I cannot connect on the laptop, I downloaded and copied dhcpcd to a cd on my other machine.  Tried to install the tarball on the IBM, but it told me that the "make" command is not installed.

I am missing the last piece to be able to connect using a browser.

Anybody out there know what I am missing?

I am using the driver that is installed with the kernal.  At least I am assuming that's the case.  "lsmod" lists ath_pci and it turns on and off with "ifconfig ath0 up" or "down".

I keep poking around trying to fiigure out why firefox or dillo won't connect.

I looked at ip tables ("sudo route")  It listed a connection for eth0, but not ath0.
 
I tried to configure ath0 with "route" but did not have any luck.

I assigned an ip address to ath0 ("sudo ifconfig ath0 172.16.1.40 up")

Ip address shows up with "iwconfig" and ifconfig.  "Route" shows the addresses associated with both eth0 AND ath0,

Strange thing is that I can ssh and ping both directions between my other machine and the ibm with 172.16.1.40.

Only thing that does not seem to work is the browsers.

I took the wired connection down ("sudo ifconfig eth0 down") and everything still works EXCEPT the browsers.

Now what.  I am not quite ready to give up.

FYI:  The reason I started to look at ip tables is that when it boots up I get an "inet_route" error.  Error is the last thing in the boot sequence.  It goes by very fast so I had to boot it several times to be able to tell what the error is.

As far as I can tell it says something about there being a "inet_route" error and shows the format to be used with "inet_route".   My best guess is that it tries to set the ip table for ath0 and runs into a syntax error somewhere in some file.

Anybody out there know where the problem lies and how to fix it?