iPAQ 5450 WLAN problems--reopening the case

Hi folks,

I know firsthand the talent on this site. I wanted to reopen a "cold case" (from 2004) in hopes that something a friend and I just noticed might suggest a solution to one of you. I apologize for the length of this post, but as you will see, there are some curious details that are opaque to me, but that I think may be at the source of the problem.

Back in 2004, a forum participant named sammyflood wrote in with a problem involving his iPaq h5455 being unable to connect to the internet through his wireless router. The original thread can be found at:

http://www.smartphonemag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6621

(His iPaq was running WM2002, with ROM Ver 1.11.19 ENG and WLAN Firmware Ver 0.100.5.39.)

When he ran vxUtil, here is what it reported under Adapters (explanation of the boldface will become clear):

ppp1

IP Address 192.168.55.101
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.55.100
Primary DNS 127.0.0.1
DHCP Server :

vnetusba1 IPAQ WLAN Wireless Adapter

IP Address 192.168.0.2
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.0.1
Primary DNS 192.168.0.1
DHCP Server 192.168.0.1

Now, my friend is having pretty much the same problem with his iPaq h5450, also running WM2002, with ROM Ver 1.11.19 ENG and WLAN Firmware Ver 0.100.5.39 (Driver Ver 3.2.2.128). Sometimes he is unable to make a connection, sometimes he makes one but it is soon dropped.

Thread of his problem at:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=996271

Now, when he ran vxUtil, this is what it reported for Adapters:

ppp1 -

IP Address :192.168.55.101
Subnet Mask :255.255.255.0
Default Gateway:192.168.55.100
Primary DNS :127.0.0.1
DHCP Server :

vnetusbal - IPAQ WLAN Wireless Adapter

IP Address :192.168.0.100
Subnet Mask :255.255.255.0
Default Gateway:192.168.0.1
Primary DNS :192.168.0.1
DHCP Server :102.168.0.1
Lease Obtained : Mon, Jan 30 ...
Lease Expires : Mon, Feb 06 ...

In addition, at the top of its report, vxUtil reported:

Current IP
PocketPC
192.168.55.101

That is, vxUtil was reporting the IP from an adapter named ppp1 as the iPaq's IP, rather than the IP distributed by the router (and reported under the IPAQ WLAN Adapter heading). sammyflood did not report what vxUtil had reported as his iPaq's IP, but I will bet the same thing happened.

For both sammy and my friend, the IPs reported out from their routers are just what you would want to see. But in both cases there appears this mysterious adapter "ppp1" (I say mysterious because it does not appear on either of my iPaqs, though they are not 5450s/5455s) with quite different addresses (and an illegitimate DNS IP at that) and no DHCP server at all. Moreover, the ppp1 IP seems to have preempted the legitimate IP distributed by the router.

I think that this interloper adapter and its IP have either blocked internet access through the router altogether or interfere with normal access (hence the dropping of the connection in my friend’s case).

When sammy originally posted this problem in 2004, one respoomdent--Ask Jake--noticed that sammy was unable to choose the WLAN adapter explicitly (a deficiency of the 5450 WLAN setup pages), but no one picked up on this mystery adapter, ppp1.

Now that there is a second case, I wonder if anyone out there recognizes this ppp1 adapter and can see a way to compel the iPaq to use the IP distributed by the router.

All grateful thanks in advance.

Marc