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View Full Version : Wireless on 3 os's and 3 laptops.



Whiffle
November 24th, 2007, 02:39 PM
/gloat on

So here we are, my neighbor with her shiny new macbook pro ( i assume running leapoard, its like a week old), my dad with his thinkpad t60 running vista, and my with my thinkpad t43 running linux. Here we all are, trying to get on the internet with a distant access point. Here are the results:

1) t43 w/ linux. When I first show up, I see one AP. I up the power and sensitivity on my wireless card ( intel 2915ABG), and see 4 access points, and can connect to one reliably. I add a command to wifi radar to tell it to up the power every time it connects to the AP, and I've got reliable internet as long as im sitting in the right spot.

2) T60 w/ vista. Oh what fun. It sees 2 of the ap's. I find a setting in about 3 places that has the wireless set to "maximum power savings." I think, well thats silly, we're running off the wall, and change it to "maximum performance". I continue to try to connect, not much luck. I go back to the power settings, they've reset themselves to "Maximum Power Savings"! !! ! Grr. I think my dad eventually got it to stick to that setting somehow and we got it to work, but it wasn't easy.

3) Macbook Pro- Sees 1 AP, can't connect to it, "times out", and I havn't found any power settings yet. Its sitting here next to me, asleep. Woo hoo.


So yeah, I don't think its any real clear indication that one laptop or os is better, but it is true that I had almost no problem getting on the internet, and everyone else did, or didn't get on at all. :-P Woo. /gloat off

argie
November 24th, 2007, 04:20 PM
Ha ha, that's pretty funny. I love it when stuff like this happens.

How did you change the sensitivity and power on your wireless though?

n3tfury
November 24th, 2007, 09:31 PM
most likely has zero to do with the OS, sorry.

Flying caveman
November 24th, 2007, 10:40 PM
I've seen the same thing on my own hardware,(where the only thing different is the OS) It doeshave something to do with the OS. I don't know why, but it does. Also, get better signal with Wireless B rather than G.

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say its because hardware guys want to sell you "high gain" antennas and signal boosters.

Whiffle
November 25th, 2007, 07:46 AM
iwconfig eth1 txpower xx sens xx


I dunno, my dads thinkpad and mine own have pretty much the same antenna setup and his wireless card is mine, although he's got a newer wireless card. Vista annoyed the crap out of me though when I was trying to get it going. I wish I had a livecd on me so I could have tested them all w/ the same os, but alas, i was unprepared. Maybe next time.

Actually my favorite thing about linux was that I could see and adjust all the settings. I could sort of do that on vista, if it would let me, sometimes. On OS X, pretty much my only option was to try hitting "connect" again. I didn't spend much time looking for the settings on that one though, i may have missed them.

argie
November 25th, 2007, 09:25 AM
iwconfig eth1 txpower xx sens xx
...

Thanks! I'll enjoy playing aound with this.