Large groups of XO-1 do not work with access points

[James Cameron]

G'day Anne,

Yes, a manual "sudo iwlist eth0 scan" in Terminal, or an "iwlist eth0
scan" in console, until the AP appears, is all it takes to fix.  You
derived an independent workaround for the same problem!

If you have some XO-1 that work and some that don't, then you might
have one broken antenna cable, which might cause this; the XO-1 uses
one antenna for transmit and the other for receive, some of the time.

(If the transmit antenna is broken, an active scan may not be heard by
an access point.  If the receive antenna is broken, the reply from an
access point might not be heard by the laptop.  Both can result in no
scan results containing the access point.  But regardless, my tests so
far have shown the problem happens with two known good antennas.)

I'd be interested in some test results though, using the script in my
previous mail, if you have time.  It would be good if we could have
wider data than just Terry and I.

The antenna test is also useful data.  With it, and practice, you can
identify laptops with single broken antennas.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Antenna_testing

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/