problems with enterasy 802.11DS

[ScapeSmerk at netscape.net]

Not sure if anyone can help me here but..

I am running an Ad-Hoc network, 2 laptops with identical Enterasys 802.11DS cards & RH7.3 OS.

I am trying to set them so that they will use ibss which i have read can be done using the command:
iwpriv set_port3 0

when i run this command it returns:

[root at eldric root]# iwpriv eth0 set_port3 0
eth0      no private ioctls.

I am attempting to do this because my network has fallen over completely and i am hoping that this might be a way around the failure.

currently both cards report identically (apart from nwid) in iwconfig and ifconfig (apart from ip addr):

Laptop 1
[root at gilbert root]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:"GTFNET"  Nickname:"gilbert"
          Mode:Ad-Hoc  Frequency:2.422GHz  Cell: 00:00:00:00:00:00
          Bit Rate:2Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm   Sensitivity:1/3
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ifconfig:
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:63:83:09:8A
          inet addr:192.168.42.8  Bcast:192.168.42.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:45 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:3060 (2.9 Kb)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

Laptop 2
[root at eldric root]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:"GTFNET"  Nickname:"eldric"
          Mode:Ad-Hoc  Frequency:2.422GHz  Cell: 00:00:00:00:00:00
          Bit Rate:11Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm   Sensitivity:1/3
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

[root at eldric root]# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:63:82:DB:F2
          inet addr:192.168.42.1  Bcast:192.168.42.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4347 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3851 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:594523 (580.5 Kb)  TX bytes:2741430 (2.6 Mb)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

note that this card shows successfull rx packets, laptop 1 seems to work occasionally, often even when i reboot! then it just falls over.
laptop 2 is my router.

When I ping from one to the other this is the result:
[root at gilbert root]# ping 192.168.42.1
PING 192.168.42.1 (192.168.42.1) from 192.168.42.8 : 56(84) bytes of data.
>From 192.168.42.8 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
>From 192.168.42.8 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
>From 192.168.42.8 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.42.1 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% loss, time 3045ms
, pipe 3

I have also seen a few of these errors in dmesg:
NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
wvlan_cs: eth0 Tx timed out! Resetting card
wvlan_cs: MAC address on eth0 is 00 e0 63 82 db f2
wvlan_cs: Found firmware 0x60004 (vendor 1) - Firmware capabilities : 1-0-1-1-1
wvlan_cs: Valid channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

when I start the laptops the drivers seem to load a number of times:

wvlan_cs: WaveLAN/IEEE PCMCIA driver v1.0.6
wvlan_cs: (c) Andreas Neuhaus <andy at fasta.fh-dortmund.de>
wvlan_cs: ``station_name'' is an obsolete module parameter, please use iwconfig.<6>wvlan_cs: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 3, io 0x0100-0x013f
wvlan_cs: Registered netdevice eth0
wvlan_cs: MAC address on eth0 is 00 e0 63 82 db f2
wvlan_cs: Found firmware 0x60004 (vendor 1) - Firmware capabilities : 1-0-1-1-1
wvlan_cs: Valid channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
wvlan_cs: MAC address on eth0 is 00 e0 63 82 db f2
wvlan_cs: Found firmware 0x60004 (vendor 1) - Firmware capabilities : 1-0-1-1-1
wvlan_cs: Valid channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

the last 2 lines sometimes appear upto 4 times consequtively, normally 2 to 3 times.

I am on the verge of giving up and throwing both of the laptops in the sea and going backto banging rocks together as a form of communication, please help me!!!

Regards,

Ben

email address above won't work, ef you wish to email me try ben(at)ausipos.com