Miniature WiFi Weirdness

[lucentminds]

Yes. Bought it back on Dec 7th. Just never got around to trying it out until now. I wanted to try and use it to make an access point out of the pi.

[adafruit_support_rick]

So, it doesn't work anywhere?
Email support@adafruit.com with a link to this thread and ask for a replacement.

And don't plug the replacement directly into the Pi. We now recommend that you always connect wifi dongles through a powered hub

[robreeves49]

You're gonna love this.

One last try before I re-flashed the SD card.

Everything works fine.

Magic? - well not quite. The other evening our network announced an IP address conflict as my wife tried to log into work. I renewed addresses on my workstation, and that went away.

I can only surmise that the Pi was fighting for an address. The lack of lights on the dongle and the heat issue were MacGuffins, apparently. I guess it was working so hard pinging for an address that it got hot and bothered. It's at 99.5F, working away at the moment.

To be fair, I think I'm on the edge of capacity running both the dongle and the camera without a powered hub, but they do work. I'll have to try some current measurements when I have the time.

[adafruit_support_rick]

Wow. Close enough to magic for me. That's one for the books

[adafruit_support_mike]

Not merely 'magic', but 'more magic': http://catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html

For tracking down a glitch obscure enough to be positively arcane, working systematically in the face of the inexplicable, correlating facts that weren't connected in any obvious way, expanding our knowledge here at Adafruit, and generally being cool in a truly wierd situation, I've just bought you the "Reverse Engineering" skill badge.

You earned it.

Send a note to support@adafruit.com with a link to this thread and they'll get it to you.

[robreeves49]

That's what 40+ years of programming computers can do to one's brain.

But, thanks a lot, I like it.

Good story by the way.

[robreeves49]

Just a follow-up. I think the Realtek driver that comes on the CD included with the Ourlink dongle may be evil, at least on Win 7 64 bit.

I had mentioned that my problems were resolved by eliminating IP address conflicts. The conflicts returned. Also, my desktop began shutting down video randomly. A lot of googleing resulted in a reference to a Realtek driver issue. Uninstalled it. Let Windows find the default driver, and all seems well.

The default "good" driver is "Realtek RT8188CU Wireless LAN802.11n USB 2.0 Network Adapter" 2010-08-10 version 1006.2.810.2010

My environment is complicated. I'm guessing most folks won't have this problem.

[adafruit_support_mike]

Thanks for letting us know. At least we know a possible driver issue exists, and from what I'm seeing, the RasPi is a lightning rod for obscure support issues.

[robreeves49]

The IP address conflicts have stayed away. However, I think the video issues can be attributed to CAT HAIR. My video card needed a good cleaning.

[adafruit_support_rick]

It's a slippery slope, my friend. Today it's cat hair, but tomorrow you could be looking at this.

Not convinced? Wait! There's more...

[lucentminds]

I got the replacement dongle. It doesn't say ulink like the original, but my Win7 and Ubuntu recognizes it unlike the ulink. on Win7 I've tried the driver "1006.2.810.2010", the one that came with the driver cd "1012.1.131.2011" and the latest "1021.3.0912.2012".

Win7 sees the SSID of the local access points, but when I try to connect to any of them I get a "limited connectivity" error. This happens whether or not a passkey is required. When a passkey is required, Win7 asks for the key but still get "limited connectivity".

I've also tried using it in a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04. Ubuntu sees the SSID of the local access points, but when I try to connect to any of them it just gives up without any error message other than "You are now offiline". When a passkey is required, Ubuntu keeps asking for my passkey over and over and never connects.

Anyone have any ideas how to make this one work?

[adafruit_support_mike]

It's a slippery slope, my friend. Today it's cat hair, but tomorrow you could be looking at this

Heck, you might end up with this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... kitten.jpg

[adafruit_support_mike]

Win7 sees the SSID of the local access points, but when I try to connect to any of them I get a "limited connectivity" error. This happens whether or not a passkey is required. When a passkey is required, Win7 asks for the key but still get "limited connectivity".

It sounds more like a signal strength issue than a hardware issue per se. The dongle is small, so its antenna will also be small, meaning it won't be able to pull signals out of the air as well. Where does your computer sit relative to the access points?

[lucentminds]

It's the catty corner to the next office. My signal strenth is Excellent/All bars.