More wireless aggravation

I spent all day yesterday in our lab testing new firmware on an SMC2555W-AG and two Netgear WG302 WAPs. (Our customer with the hotspot is still having problems.)

I found that the latest firmware for the SMC -- not available on their website, BTW -- does not fix the problems with Windows PCs inability to obtain an IP address after associating with the WAP. As before, my iBook works fine. So, I'll need to touch base with SMC on this.

With that behind me I decied to upgrade and configure two Netgear WG302s we had, with the intention of replacing the onsite SMC WAPs. The first unit ugraded and worked without any issues. I then spent about 2.5 hours trying to get online using the second box, which I know is from the same production run since the serial number is only off by three. I was able to associate with it but not get an IP on either of the two Windows PCs I have in the lab, nor with my iBook. I could access the WAP over the wireless interface and the Ethernet port, but only if a laptop was connected physically to it. If the WAP and a laptop were connected to the SMC8013 gateway, I couldn't even ping it, although the WAP showed up in the SMC's ARP table. I tried rebooting and factory defaulting the WAP and the gateway. No dice. I tried different LAN ports on the gateway, different Ethernet cables, straight-through and crossover cables. Nothing.

Finally, today I plugged the WG302 into a different gateway and it worked fine. (Insert long string of extremely foul expletives here.) The problem wasn't with the WAP after all, it was with the SMC gateway. I'm going to do some more testing this afternoon to ensure that it's stable, but I plan to go onsite tomorrow to swap in the Netgears and pull the SMC WAPs.