Unable to ping Linksys 802.11a WAP

[DAve Jenkins]

I corresponded briefly in the old forum regarding problems browsing to my Linksys WAP54a WAP. I got some help from ??? - he/she suggested that I change the IP address on the NIC card, and sure enough, that worked.

I might pass along that as part of that exercise I learned that turbo mode on the WAP54a is not supported in XP (one of the main reasons I was trying to browse to the WAP!) and that after I changed the NIC IP address, I was no longer able to browse the net from the laptop. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I had rebooted the laptop, I might have been able to, but rather than that, I changed the NIC card's address back when I was done jiggling the WAP's condifguration.

At any rate, I wanted to thank whoever that was that made that final suggestion - it certainly was spot on.

BTW, I might pass on to the rest of the group a little performance information for that WAP. With the WAP at desktop height, and the laptop about 40' and two interior walls away (as the crow flies). the signal strength was "poor" and throughput was reported at 6 Mbps. An addiitonal wall further away, and the link would not stay up for any appreciable length of time.

Yesterday, I relocated the WAP into the attic at a more central location, so that the distance form the laptop is about 20' horizontally, and 8' vertically, with just the ceiling between transmitter and receiver. Now, I get "excellent" signal strength and 54 Mbps throughput. OTOH, if I move the laptop into a second room (where the distances are about equal, but there's an interior wall to get through), the signal sterngth drops to "good" and speeds drop to 48 Mbps. Still very much usable, though.

So it seems to me that this device is extremely sensitive to intervening obstructions (of any type) and distances.

[Greenstead]

Dave - I think it was me you talked with on the old forums. Glad to hear things started working for you.