David Empson wrote:
>
> To simplify the question: has she _ever_ successfully connected her
> computer to a wireless network?
>
> The evidence so far suggests that her PowerBook's Airport hardware is
> faulty in some way. It might be as simple as the antenna not being
> plugged in (inside the computer).
>
> If her Airport has worked fine elsewhere (recently) then it may be an
> environmental issue such as interference with your Airport network.
Oh yes, it works most of the time. Fine in Eudora, mostly OK in Safari,
just stops from time to time.
>
>> I suppose I could switch my iMac from ethernet to airport. But it would
>> still be within a couple of feet of the base station, so unless it worked
>> really badly it wouldn't be helpful in diagnosing. I couldn't use ethernet
>> without bringing the laptop to within a couple of feet. And no other
>> abailable networks (my neighbour's is visible but password protected).
>
> It is definitely worth trying your iMac's Airport connection (unplug the
> Ethernet cable to be certain you are using Airport).
>
> If your iMac works fine, and it has a good signal strength, then the
> problem is likely to be specific to your friend's laptop, and is not the
> fault of your Airport base station or environmental issues like
> interference.
>
>> Hope I don't sound dismissive of your earlier suggestions. It's a matter
>> of balancing the inconvenience of the problem with the inconvenience of
>> various possible tests. This suggestion of checking signal strength,
>> which I did not know about, seems one I need to try, as it can be done
>> without any hassle.
>>
>> I'm just checking the statistics. the MAC address beginning with
>> 00:11:24 seems to be that of the Airport card, and shows signal and
>> noise both around -90, with rate (connected but not doing anything) of
>> 5.
>
> 00:11:24 is one of the prefixes assigned to Apple, so that could be her
> laptop. I assume you confirmed this on her computer?
Yes, that is definitely her laptop.
>
> The numbers showing signal and noise both around -90 means that the base
> station is getting almost no connection to that computer, due to
> extremely low signal strength: the "signal" figure should be between -50
> and -80, but "noise" is typically around -90 in my experience. The
> "rate" of 5 (megabits per second) is also extremely low, probably the
> best that can be achieved given the weak signal.
>
> This is very likely to be a problem with interference from an outside
> source, or a fault with the Airport card or antenna in either your base
> station or her laptop.
I'm wondering if there's something weird about the statistics on my
system, or whether it is a function of not actually using wireless at
the time of writing. Because the connection between my main Airport base
station (connected to my iMac by ethernet) and the remote base station
(part of a WDS network) only shows a signal level of around -80 in both
directions. And my Squeezebox shows signal -78 noise -1 rate -1 but
works fine without the slightest problem.
In fact it seems quite likely that the statistics are weird. I've
downloaded a few other programs for checking wifi connections. AirMoose
is showing signal -55, noise -87 at the same time that Airport Utility
shows signal -81, noise -87. And another utility is showing much the
same as AirMoose.
