Why does my Ad-Hoc WLAN hiccup if given a real Internet IP (when bridged with my network card) but works fine w/NAT?

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
857
126
My cable co is misconfigured and I can lease as many real Internet (Non-NAT) IP addresses as I want through a regular network. I use a plain hub at home to get all my PCs online.

To get my laptop online, I first simply configured 802.11b Ad-Hoc and bridged the connection between my wired network card and my 802.11b card using Windows XP's bridging capabilities. My laptop recieved an IP from my ISP and was online.

However, browsing web sites would only work for a few minutes before things started timeing out and downloads would cancel. Sometimes, it would snap back and start working again a few minutes later, but it would usually just "stay broke."

It tried increasing my ping timeouts and noticed that during these periods when websites were working, ping times with popular web site domains were normal (12-88ms), but when it would enevitably crap out pings jumped to 33,000ms.

I downloaded the bootable Linux distribution with built-in access point software (www.sputnik.com) and it did not work for me. Sometimes it boot would claim to work but the default Sputnik page would always have an error of some kind. Other times it would hang while configureing networking settings.

I've tried it all on 3 very different systems and none can do it right. Sharing through NAT and firewalls screw up half of my games and applications and is way too much bother for someone who doesn't care about being "seen" on the Internet. So can someone help me achieve my ideal setup? Thanks!
 

JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
29,516
407
126
WinXP bridging with Wireless Ad-Hoc connection is problematic.

Get a regular Access Point and plug it to your Hub.
 

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
857
126
That would more than double the costs (So far, only 2 $40 wireless cards with free PCI adapters). Considering that the functions of an access point are literally disabled on my card just to sell me an access point really irks me (Anything to spur hardware sales I guess...). Will a so-called "wireless bridge" (Such as Linksys or D-Link's XBOX/PS2/GC offerings) work in AdHoc without an access point? Thnx!
 

Buddha Bart

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
3,064
0
0
have you tried a non-wireless setup? bridging with cat5?

perhaps the cable co's network is setup so that you can dchp, and then you'll have just enough bandwith for it to authenticate your mac or something.

bart