Clue Deficit [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

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SMC 2404WBR "Barricade Turbo" router ... performing DHCP for the machines behind it except the Sun 3/60 (is that looking for some other protocol instead?) ... PalmOS reports a connection to "Generic AP" instead of the name I assigned to it ... very slow connections through it and periods of lag ... ping from a Windows box (10baseT, not wireless) shows about 50% packet loss ...

Seeking clues -- what do I start looking at first for troubleshooting this?

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There are 10 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

The Sun knows not DHCP. Speak to it in the gentle sounds of bootp.
50% packet loss on a wireless network is huge. Do you have an old microwave oven on? Or a 2.4GHz cordless phone? Or your neighbors?

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Dunno about the neighbours -- I doubt it, but if they do, they're close enough, since it's a row house. If that's it, then turning off the wireless features from the web administration interface ought to fix the packet loss that I'm seeing over a cabled connection, right? (Unfortunately, I don't have a tool like ping for the Visor -- searching for freeware ping, traceroute, and any other network diagnostic tools is on today's to-do list.)

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Also, go to SMC's site and download the latest & greatest drivers for your Barricade.

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Drivers? I hope you mean firmware ... else I'll be rather constrained WRT what machines I put behind it. [Heads off to SMC web site to see what's there...]

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You are right - I meant firmware. I was THINKING firmware. My fingers decided to say "drivers".

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*Whew* That's a relief. A typo or "thinko" is less scary than a manufacturer making some really bizarre decisions.

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By the way, I also have an SMC Barricade - though not that model. It works like a champ for me.

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Disable wireless connectivity.
Unplug all but one machine.
Debug that connection.

Repeat for each device you want connected.

If you can't find an obvious problem, start testing the network with pairs of devices plugged in.

Also check for subtle things, like two devices trying to share the same IP address.

And a side note: when you are reduced to checking single entities for sources of error, remember that your Ethernet cables can themselves be sources of trouble, as can specific ports on the SMC box.

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What OS are you running on the Sun? What daemons? The Sun OS's don't ship configured
to run DHCP (but they can be made to do so). I'm guessing your base problem is something
eating up the router's CPU or routing bandwidth. Is there a lot of activity on any of the
ports? I had a problem like that where the router sporadically issued a RARP request for
every possible IP address on its network. The Sun would then get curious and issue a
DNS lookup for these nonexistent machines (via, of course, the router). This would
circulate and multiply (and cost me money, as my link was per-minute (curse you
bananex) and my ISP connectivity was also per-minute (curse you screw-Unet).

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Huh. Apparently no OS, which would explain why it's trying to do bootp or something. (I finally found out how to interrupt the boot process and ask the ROM monitor what commands it knows, and it told me there was no boot drive on the SCSI port. Guess I should've opened the case and looked before assuming I could just power it up and go.) Whoops.

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