ticked at netgear
Hi gang, I've got a ma401 card from netgear. It worked beautifully under linux (better than in windows even). Today I switch on my laptop, and I no longer get a link to my network with the card. I figure I must've had a power glitch and my firewall isn't giving out dhcp address, so I restart it. Still no link. I check the settings of my wireless router, all good. I boot my desktop to see if my usb wireless card works, it does. None of my settings on my laptop have changed, I checked. I tweak with iwconfig until my hands are sore, no luck. So I finally call netgear because I figure that it is a hardware issue and I need to send in the card to have at least the antenna replaced. Tech support says, "I'm sorry but we can only trouble-shoot on windows so we can't help you." I tell them, "It's not a software issue, nothing has changed with my software from last night, everything is the same, the card is not picking up the link from the router, it's not functioning, it's a hardware issue..." They say, "But we need to troubleshoot in windows." I say, "Look, I've turned encryption on and off, I've tried different modes, I've tried different channels, I've turned rts and frag on and off [note: now it's not accepting values, another clue that this is a hardware problem]. Nothing works, your card is broken and I want to send it in." I'm told to hold. "I'm sorry, we cannot help you. We need to troubleshoot in windows." I slam the phone on the reciever so hard I think I nearly break it. Now I am pissed, and I still have a broken card. Does anyone else have any history with wireless antennas not working all of the sudden? This card hasn't even been out of the house, I leave it here when I go out for crying out loud! My next attempt will to disable encryption and go back to wvlan_cs to see if that jogs this thing. But I truly think it's hardware; nothing, NOTHING, on my laptop changed, I didn't even turn it on this morning! Wes -- ------ This message may be signed using GPG, for my public key please send me a message with "Key Request" in the subject line.
I've had the problem with everything from DSL connections, cable modems, printers, hard drives, modems etc. They only want to talk to you if you run that windows crap. I just tell myself that the tech-support guys are too dumb to be able to figure out how to do anything with Linux. I can partially understand that Linux is more complex than windows, there are way more platforms, kernel versions, distributions and whatever to support. By only supporting windows i suppose they make it idiot proof by reducing the number of variables/complexities. On Sat, 2 Nov 2002, Wes Allen wrote:
Hi gang, I've got a ma401 card from netgear. It worked beautifully under linux (better than in windows even). Today I switch on my laptop, and I no longer get a link to my network with the card. I figure I must've had a power glitch and my firewall isn't giving out dhcp address, so I restart it. Still no link. I check the settings of my wireless router, all good. I boot my desktop to see if my usb wireless card works, it does. None of my settings on my laptop have changed, I checked. I tweak with iwconfig until my hands are sore, no luck. So I finally call netgear because I figure that it is a hardware issue and I need to send in the card to have at least the antenna replaced. Tech support says, "I'm sorry but we can only trouble-shoot on windows so we can't help you." I tell them, "It's not a software issue, nothing has changed with my software from last night, everything is the same, the card is not picking up the link from the router, it's not functioning, it's a hardware issue..." They say, "But we need to troubleshoot in windows." I say, "Look, I've turned encryption on and off, I've tried different modes, I've tried different channels, I've turned rts and frag on and off [note: now it's not accepting values, another clue that this is a hardware problem]. Nothing works, your card is broken and I want to send it in." I'm told to hold. "I'm sorry, we cannot help you. We need to troubleshoot in windows." I slam the phone on the reciever so hard I think I nearly break it. Now I am pissed, and I still have a broken card.
Does anyone else have any history with wireless antennas not working all of the sudden? This card hasn't even been out of the house, I leave it here when I go out for crying out loud!
My next attempt will to disable encryption and go back to wvlan_cs to see if that jogs this thing. But I truly think it's hardware; nothing, NOTHING, on my laptop changed, I didn't even turn it on this morning!
Wes
-- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl@hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 Personal web page: http://karl.hiramoto.org/ Freedom: http://www.technojihad.com/ Zoop Productions: http://www.zoop.org/ KTEQ Rapid City: http://www.kteq.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was all saloonkeepers were Democrats.
I've had the problem with everything from DSL connections, cable modems, printers, hard drives, modems etc.
I find that it's works out well that if I'm paying for a product or service, anything that I might come in contact with tech support for is platform independent. For instance, I have systems on both AT&T Broadband and Speakeasy DSL, the troubleshooting for which takes place with the computer unplugged and is in no way dependant on the computer/router connected. Obviously there's not much you can do with a device that's plugged into your computer other than keep a Windows partition around or go without support if that's a company's policy, I suppose.
They only want to talk to you if you run that windows crap. I just tell myself that the tech-support guys are too dumb to be able to figure out how to do anything with Linux.
I just tell myself that as much as I might like Linux, it doesn't make sense to spend the huge amount of resources it would take to be able to officially support an operating system (in all its incarnations) that a minimal percentage of their users use. Speakeasy won't officially support Linux, but their techs are pretty smart and can troubleshoot most issues from their own knowledge. Brian J. Conway bconway@alum.wpi.edu "LINUX is obsolete" - Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of Minix - Jan 29, 1992
On Sat, Nov 02, 2002 at 05:47:48PM -0500, Karl Hiramoto wrote: karl> They only want to talk to you if you run that windows crap. I just karl> tell myself that the tech-support guys are too dumb to be able to karl> figure out how to do anything with Linux. If you are lucky enough to have experience on the Windows side to know how things work, you can just "pretend" to do what they ask and feed them "fake" information. Worked for me in the past... -- Charles R. Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> / http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 A0F9 49BB 5886
Good advice, never tell them you're using linux. Actually, it is not a hardware problem (though it sure looked like one). Mandrake issued a new version of initscripts that "fixed" wireless network link problems. And I installed it, however, I never rebooted my machine and the interface was already up, so I didn't notice the problem until this afternoon when I turned on my laptop. I read the comments for the updates and found the issue. Updates that break things, I'm having windows flash-backs. Wes On Saturday 02 November 2002 5:42 pm, Wes Allen wrote:
Hi gang, I've got a ma401 card from netgear. It worked beautifully under linux (better than in windows even). Today I switch on my laptop, and I no longer get a link to my network with the card. I figure I must've had a power glitch and my firewall isn't giving out dhcp address, so I restart it. Still no link. I check the settings of my wireless router, all good. I boot my desktop to see if my usb wireless card works, it does. None of my settings on my laptop have changed, I checked. I tweak with iwconfig until my hands are sore, no luck. So I finally call netgear because I figure that it is a hardware issue and I need to send in the card to have at least the antenna replaced. Tech support says, "I'm sorry but we can only trouble-shoot on windows so we can't help you." I tell them, "It's not a software issue, nothing has changed with my software from last night, everything is the same, the card is not picking up the link from the router, it's not functioning, it's a hardware issue..." They say, "But we need to troubleshoot in windows." I say, "Look, I've turned encryption on and off, I've tried different modes, I've tried different channels, I've turned rts and frag on and off [note: now it's not accepting values, another clue that this is a hardware problem]. Nothing works, your card is broken and I want to send it in." I'm told to hold. "I'm sorry, we cannot help you. We need to troubleshoot in windows." I slam the phone on the reciever so hard I think I nearly break it. Now I am pissed, and I still have a broken card.
Does anyone else have any history with wireless antennas not working all of the sudden? This card hasn't even been out of the house, I leave it here when I go out for crying out loud!
My next attempt will to disable encryption and go back to wvlan_cs to see if that jogs this thing. But I truly think it's hardware; nothing, NOTHING, on my laptop changed, I didn't even turn it on this morning!
Wes
-- ------ This message may be signed using GPG, for my public key please send me a message with "Key Request" in the subject line.
participants (4)
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Brian J.Conway -
Charles R. Anderson -
Karl Hiramoto -
Wes Allen