[OT] Mac Wireless Problems

[David Cantrell]

On Sun, Feb 25, 2007 at 09:15:03PM -0500, Chris Devers wrote:

> I talked to a guy who explained that the circuity on certain network  
> hardware -- he cited cable modems and wireless base stations in  
> particular -- is prone to burn-in over time, as commonly used  
> pathways on the circuit board get etched in and the logic gates stop  
> working properly.

That sounds to me like the sort of failure you get from driving cheap
hardware too hard.  ie, pretty much exactly what I'd expect from modern
consumer electronics.

> On the other hand, I'd never heard anyone else claim such things  
> before, making me a bit skeptical.

Pretty much exactly the same thing came up a few days ago on an
electronics list I'm on.  It's not that the gates "get stuck" but the
pathways to them eventually vapourise cos they're being worked too hard.
Immediately prior to that they'll just be unreliable because the track
has got thinner and hence has a higher resistance so signals don't
always get passed.

The only other thing to check might be if there's some ARP caching
badness.  Power-cycle the access point, leaving it off for a couple of
minutes to make sure it forgets.  Also reboot the Mac, and before
bringing the access point back up, check (using Netinfo Manager) if
there's any ARP crap being stored.  Don't ask me where to look though.

-- 
header   FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL    From =~ /david.cantrell/i
describe FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL    Message is from David Cantrell
score    FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL    15.72 # This figure from experimentation