problems with intel wireless cards

[Bjorge Solli <bjorge solli it uib no>]

Hi Dan and others,

we see a problem with intel wireless cards on our Fedora 9 with 2.6.26
kernel.

The problem exists (it seems) only on our high end wireless routers, not
on cheap home access points. I have seen it on both a and g networks, on
two different brands of routers (both cisco).

The router receives the first request for connection, but it gives up
replying after 10 tries. This results in no connection when the wireless
card times out.

We are able to "solve" this in these ways:
- restart NetworkManager service many times until it works.
- revert to 2.6.25 kernel

We have seen the same on Ubuntu.

We first thought it was due to bad firmware, but we have produced the
same results with all fw we could get our hands on.

It seems to me that this is not a bug in NM, but in the kernel, and that
NM sometimes does "The Right Thing" to make it work, and other times
not. I'm guessing it's a kernel issue, but want your advice on this topic.

Regards
Bjørge Solli
Univ. of Bergen, Norway