MAC filter problem / incompatibility?

I've never seen anything like that. However, I've accidentally created the same problem while tinkering with spoofing MAC addresses. Windoze does not necessarily use the hardware MAC address of the wireless card. What appears in the registry is what Windoze uses, not what's in the card.

've also created the problem when I replaced a mini-PCI wireless card with another identical replacement card. Windoze plug-n-play detected the card change, but for some odd reason retained the old MAC address in the registry. It took a while to find and fix that one, but now I look for a discrepancy in MAC addresses.

The Intel ProSet utility will show you the actual hardware MAC address.

you run, from an MSDOS cmd window: ipconfig /all | more it will show you what Windoze thinks is the MAC address for your Wireless card. You can also use Netstumbler to see what MAC address is being used.

If they're all the same, then I don't have a clue what's broken. If they're different, you might wanna use one of the utilities to make the registry and the hardware MAC addresses the same.

Hi,

My router (DI-524 rev. A1, firmware 1.05) already works fine with one computer connected through the physical port, and another one through a wireless connection. I am using WEP (128 bits, Share key) and MAC filtering, and am not broadcasting the SSID.

I added a laptop to the wireless network. It is a HP Compaq nc6000, using a Intel ProSet 2200BG Wireless adapter, with the latest drivers. The laptop connects fine if I disable MAC filters. As soon as I enable it, the laptop cannot connect anymore. If I disable the MAC filter again, I reconnect within seconds! (And the connection remains stable.)

I verified that the right MAC address was entered (I cloned it, before enabling the MAC filter, and then typed it to make sure that there is no issue with cloning, to no avail). I also tested that the laptop connected to another network (and there was no issue there) to ensure that the problem is on the router.

Anyone got a similar problem? Is there a known compatibility issue? I googled about 10 different combinations and got no result... If you have one, I'd be happy to look stupid :)

TIA

Dominique

Thanks for the help... but it didn't help.

The situation is VERY strange: the MAC Address on the filter is the same as the one I see when I run getmac.exe or ipconfig /all. It's also the same as the one I see on the adapter's configuration and the details of my connection (when I disable the MAC filter).

I did another test: I assigned a fixed IP address to this MAC (I use DHCP, for the rest). The IP address is assigned correctly, not by the DHCP! (Which would mean that the router recognized the MAC when the filter was disabled, but not when the filter is enabled.)

I'm not a network engineer, but it looks like the right MAC is broadcasted from the card, the MAC filter works properly on the router (since another machine uses it), but the connection cannot be established when the filter is on.

I guess I should check how the "handshake" is handled between the adapter and the router, and if the filters/key exchange are applied in the same order. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know where to start...

Thanks anyway, your post was very educative for me.

Regards,

Dominique

Did you enter the MAC address of the wireless adapter into the list of your router ? Cause I get the impression that you entered another MAC...

So much for that theory. I did some googling for "DI-524 mac address filter" and found some interesting comments which include the exact symptoms you're seeing.

the section starting with "Firmware Disaster". It seems that v1.05 firmware has a few problems. Several postings suggest going back to v1.03 firmware. Here's another good clue:

yet another:

The older 1.03 firmware is still on the Dlink web pile:

See the section starting with "Firmware Disaster". It seems that

and yet another:

Thanks,

I'll try rolling back... The revision info of 1.05 seems to indicate that the impact should be minimal in my case.

Dominique