Association Problem with Multiple APs

[ta168000 at oak.cats.ohiou.edu]

Hello list,

I am running the 4.9 release of FreeBSD on an embedded net4521 box
and my problem is:

Recently a wireless ISP put up an antenna in our apartment complex.
Now for some reason, my 4521 (and my iBook with regular AirPort, also
BSD based??) favor the wireless ISP's connection over my own LinkSys
access point.  The ISP's antenna runs on channel 1 and consistently
has a stronger signal than my own AP (channel 6).  I have tried changing
my own AP's channel to no avail.

Each time I issue the commands to associate with my AP the 4521 merely
connects to the ISP rather than my specified SSID.  If I check wicontrol
or ifconfig it reports that the desired netname is my AP, but the current
netname always ends up to be the ISP's AP.  This is extremely irritating.

I recently got a wireless card (NL-2511CD Plus EXT2 802.11b PCMCIA
by SENAO) w/ the prism 2.5 chipset, and the aforementioned problem is
only with this card.  My older card (a 3com 3CRWE737A PCMCIA) works
*relatively* well, but I wanted to upgrade so...


Has anyone had this problem, and does anyone have a suggestion to fix it?
Any insight into the BSD or the OS X problem would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.. Tyler

---------------------------------------------------------
Below is specific info if anyone cares to peruse it:
---------------------------------------------------------

---> The Senao Card Initalizes:

pccard: card inserted, slot 0
Mar 15 22:30:14 soekrismini1 pccardd[58]: Card "INTERSIL"("HFA384x/IEEE")
[Version 01.02] [] matched "INTERSIL" ("HFA384x/IEEE") [(null)] [(null)]
wi0 at port 0x240-0x27f irq 10 slot 0 on pccard0
wi0: 802.11 address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
wi0: using RF:PRISM2.5 MAC:ISL3873
wi0: Intersil Firmware: Primary 1.01.00, Station 1.04.09
Mar 15 22:30:19 soekrismini1 pccardd[58]: wi0: INTERSIL (HFA384x/IEEE)
inserted

---> I try to join my desired access point:

ifconfig wi0 inet ssid "My Access Point" media DS/11Mbps

---> and the card joins the access point of the wireless ISP (Which has a
stronger signal) instead...

wi0: flags=8842<BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet DS/11Mbps
        status: associated
        ssid StupidAssISP 1:"My Access Point"
        stationname "FreeBSD WaveLAN/IEEE node"
        channel 1 authmode OPEN powersavemode OFF powersavesleep 100
        wepmode OFF weptxkey 1

---> wicontrol -L lists:

NIC serial number:                      [ ]
Station name:                           [ FreeBSD WaveLAN/IEEE node ]
SSID for IBSS creation:                 [ My Access Point ]
Current netname (SSID):                 [ StupidAssISP ]
Desired netname (SSID):                 [ My Access Point ]
Current BSSID:                          [ xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xy ]
Channel list:                           [ 2047 ]
IBSS channel:                           [ 3 ]
Current channel:                        [ 1 ]
Comms quality/signal/noise:             [ 92 154 11 ]
Promiscuous mode:                       [ Off ]
Process 802.11b Frame:                  [ Off ]
Intersil-Prism2 based card:             [ 1 ]
Port type (1=BSS, 3=ad-hoc):            [ 1 ]
MAC address:                            [ xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx ]
TX rate (selection):                    [ 11 ]
TX rate (actual speed):                 [ 2 ]
RTS/CTS handshake threshold:            [ 2347 ]
Create IBSS:                            [ Off ]
Access point density:                   [ 1 ]
Power Mgmt (1=on, 0=off):               [ 0 ]
Max sleep time:                         [ 100 ]
WEP encryption:                         [ Off ]
TX encryption key:                      [ 1 ]
Encryption keys:                        [  ][  ][  ][  ]
Available APs:
    StupidAssISP  [ xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xy ]  [ 1  ]  [ 46 60 14 ]  100
[ ess ]   [ 1.0 2.0 5.5 11.0 ]  * 11.0 *
    My Access Point  [ xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xz ]  [ 6  ]  [ 31 42 11 ]  100
 [ ess ]  [ 1.0 2.0 5.5 11.0 ]  * 1.0 *

---> Incidentally, it works correctly with the above process with the card
below:

soekrismini1 pccardd[58]: Card "3Com"("3CRWE737A AirConnect Wireless LAN PC
 Card") [1.00] [[none]] matched "3Com" ("3CRWE737A AirConnect Wireless LAN
 PC Card") [(null)] [(null)]
wi0 at port 0x280-0x2c7 iomem 0xd5000-0xd53ff irq 10 slot 0 on pccard0
wi0: 802.11 address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
wi0: using RF:PRISM2 MAC:HFA3841
wi0: Symbol Firmware: Primary 2.01.02, Station 2.51.04
Mar 15 22:41:21 soekrismini1 pccardd[58]: wi0: 3Com (3CRWE737A AirConnect
Wireless LAN PC Card) inserted.