The problem was that my Intel Centrino wireless 6205 nic was not associating with a 5ghz channel in my Cisco Model: DPC3941T Hardware revision 1.0 cable router. The 2.4ghz band and connections are functioning well but the 5gig connection is much faster. Okay if you really want to know, after 2am, when all is quite, I can connect to the 5ghz band at up to 60Mgb down and 15 up with an rssi level at around -72 db. It almost equals my cabled in port. I'm not using any range extenders, repeaters, or fancy antennas. The 2.4ghz band using "g" and high throughput "ht/20" gets 20Mgbits (max) down and 12 up.
I'm including a look at my cable modems wireless 5ghz properties page. Take note of the mixed mode(s) of operation and the tiny little print under the security mode window. Oh gee more confusing crap, to add to the overwhelming amount of confusion already confusing me. Symptoms of this problem include but not limited to the following:
a] Repeated, albight endless connection attempts by local instance of lan interface, i.e. "wlan0" in my case. This can be viewed in real time either in /var/log/messages or preferably using Wire-shark. Wire-shark lets you save your dhcp boot packets so I can compare them to successful connections by my Windows OS. In my case the dhcp request packets were exactly the same save for one tiny little difference.
b] If your using "wpa_gui for wpa_supplicant" you can also see very brief successful connections followed by a message in the message window stating a reason "1" or "3" for the disconnection.
c] At times, it may appear that dhclient has not set up dhcp with wlan0. This means that if you type
The point here is that this problem ran me around in circles for quite some time but as usual all you have to do is look at the clues and read
Take a look at the 'CAPS' column and follow it down to where you see <<<<<<<<<<<<<<. That's the 5gig channel I want to associate with. Notice the capabilities of this AP listed by
That is the way this interface presented itself all the time. It took me a long time to recognize the clues. Now, just type
Please forgive my complete ignorance of the intimacies involved with 802.11 protocol, but I believe that the iwn0 interface should only be considering the CAPS of the listed AP's and ignoring the flags completely. I would also add that maybe the cable modem is not advertising itself correctly but that's not true cause my other windows PC's and I Pad's and my wife's MAC desktop all seem to connect to this AP on this channel seamlessly. What I am trying to say is that it looks like the flags are messing up iwn0 and it just goes down hill from there. Please clue me in. I have personally googled the crap out of this and did not get anywhere. I'm good though, cause this is now behind me finally, and my laptops wireless connection is rock solid just like it should be. Since this is really about iwn (part of the base system) I'm also confused about whether this is the right spot to put this little blurb?
I'm including a look at my cable modems wireless 5ghz properties page. Take note of the mixed mode(s) of operation and the tiny little print under the security mode window. Oh gee more confusing crap, to add to the overwhelming amount of confusion already confusing me. Symptoms of this problem include but not limited to the following:
a] Repeated, albight endless connection attempts by local instance of lan interface, i.e. "wlan0" in my case. This can be viewed in real time either in /var/log/messages or preferably using Wire-shark. Wire-shark lets you save your dhcp boot packets so I can compare them to successful connections by my Windows OS. In my case the dhcp request packets were exactly the same save for one tiny little difference.
b] If your using "wpa_gui for wpa_supplicant" you can also see very brief successful connections followed by a message in the message window stating a reason "1" or "3" for the disconnection.
c] At times, it may appear that dhclient has not set up dhcp with wlan0. This means that if you type
dhclient wlan0
and get an error of any kind instead of "dhclient running" and an immediate return to your prompt. If you see this or suspect this try ifconfig
and it will stop short and also tell you that dhclient is not running or complain about wpa_supplicant and show nothing for wlan0.The point here is that this problem ran me around in circles for quite some time but as usual all you have to do is look at the clues and read
man(8) ifconfig
about 150 times and you will have arrived right where I am. THE FIX!
Code:
# ifconfig wlan0 scan list sta
SSID/MESH ID BSSID CHAN RATE S:N INT CAPS
HOME-A3BF-2.4 **:**:**:**:**:** 6 54M -75:-95 100 EPS RSN HTCAP WPA WME ATH RSN WPA
They'reHotSpot **:**:**:**:**:** 6 54M -76:-95 100 EPS RSN HTCAP WPA WME ATH RSN WPA
Riley **:**:**:**:**:** 11 54M -89:-95 100 EP RSN HTCAP WPS WPA WME
HOME-D292 **:**:**:**:**:** 11 54M -89:-95 100 EP HTCAP WPA RSN WME
xfinitywifi **:**:**:**:**:** 11 54M -89:-95 100 E HTCAP WME
Laughlin **:**:**:**:**:** 11 54M -91:-95 100 EPS RSN WPA WME HTCAP ATH
Giveitashot **:**:**:**:**:** 7 54M -77:-95 100 EPS RSN HTCAP WPA WME WPS
Linksys27183 **:**:**:**:**:** 2 54M -86:-95 100 EP RSN HTCAP WPS WME
HOME-A3BF-5 **:**:**:**:**:** 149 54M -81:-95 100 EP HTCAP WME ATH RSN WPA<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
xfinitywifi **:**:**:**:**:** 6 54M -88:-95 100 E HTCAP WME
yngwie2 **:**:**:**:**:** 6 54M -91:-95 100 EP HTCAP RSN WME WPS
0x000000000... **:**:**:**:**:** 2 54M -86:-95 100 EPS RSN HTCAP WME
HOME-09A0-2.4 **:**:**:**:**:** 1 54M -91:-95 100 EPS HTCAP WME ATH RSN WPA WPS
Linksys07330 **:**:**:**:**:** 3 54M -92:-95 100 EP RSN HTCAP WPS WME
NETGEAR88 **:**:**:**:**:** 9 54M -86:-95 100 EP RSN HTCAP WPS WME
ATT50333 **:**:**:**:**:** 11 54M -92:-95 100 EPS RSN WPA WME ATH
ADDR AID CHAN RATE RSSI IDLE TXSEQ RXSEQ CAPS FLAG
d8:97:ba:fb:f7:10 1 149 13M 13.0 0 24428 27136 EP AQS+ HTCAP WME ATH RSN WPA
scan
as being 'EP' only! Notice all the EPS stations. The S means the station is setup for Short Preamble. In this case IT IS NOT! Now look at the FLAGS column at the bottom in the list sta
AQS+. Below is excerpt from ifconfig:- Q Quality of Service (QoS). Indicates that the station is using QoS encapsulation for data frame. QoS encapsulation is enabled only when WME mode is enabled.
- S Short Preamble. Indicates that the station is doing short preamble to optionally improve throughput performance with 802.11g and 802.11b
Code:
# ifconfig
iwn0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
ether **:**:**:**:**:**
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11na<<<<< iwn0 coming up 11na capable
(okay maybe, but that is not g or b?)
status: associated
re0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=8209b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
ether **:**:**:**:**:**
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: Ethernet autoselect (none)
status: no carrier
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
options=600003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
ether **:**:**:**:**:**
inet6 fe80::215:ff:fe62:85fc%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
status: no carrier<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<this was also indicative of this problem
ssid "" channel 149 (5745 MHz 11a ht/40+)<<<<<<<<no ssid, mode 11a, ht/40+ (this line makes no sense at all!!!)
country US authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON deftxkey UNDEF txpower 14
bmiss 10 mcastrate 6 mgmtrate 6 scanvalid 60 bgscan bgscanintvl 300
bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 64 ampdulimit 8k
-amsdutx amsdurx shortgi wme roaming MANUAL
ifconfig wlan0 ht -ht40
and have a look:
Code:
# ifconfig
iwn0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
ether **:**:**:**:**:**
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11a<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<much better
status: associated
re0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=8209b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
ether **:**:**:**:**:**
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: Ethernet autoselect (none)
status: no carrier
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
options=600003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
ether **:**:**:**:**:**
inet6 fe80::215:ff:fe62:85fc%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
inet 10.0.0.226 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.0.255
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet OFDM/54Mbps mode 11a<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<oh dear the same mode at 54mbps
status: associated<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<everyones favorite word
ssid HOME-A3BF-5 channel 149 (5745 MHz 11a) bssid d8:97:ba:fb:f7:10
country US authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON deftxkey UNDEF
TKIP 2:128-bit TKIP 3:128-bit txpower 14 bmiss 10 mcastrate 6
mgmtrate 6 scanvalid 60 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250
roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 12 wme roaming MANUAL