checking wireless cable

[Oleg Goldshmidt]

Hi,

I have a weird - and rather embarrassing - problem after returning
home from a trip. My laptop's wireless card can't connect to the
wireless router (D-Link DIR-615) anymore. I am fairly certain that no
configuration has changed. 

Fedora 14 on an X200 ThinkPad with Intel iwl5100AGN card. Firmware
installed, kernel 2.6.35.13-91.fc14.x86_64,

# lsmod | grep iwlagn
iwlagn                209445  0 
iwlcore               195698  1 iwlagn
mac80211              229063  2 iwlagn,iwlcore
cfg80211              134981  3 iwlagn,iwlcore,mac80211

(tried to reload iwlagn multiple times).

Restarting the network yields:

Bringing up interface wlan0:  
Determining IP information for wlan0... failed; no link present.  Check cable?

(a fun message IMHO). In /var/log/messages I see

kernel: [ 2355.907603] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

Things I've tried (beyond fruitless googling, of course - no "forums"
have useful info of any kind):

1. disabling wireless security
2. making sure the device is not under NetworkManager control
   (switched on and off, uninstalled NM and reinstalled again) - NM is
   not to blame
3. restarting everything multiple times (and checking BIOS settings)
4. making sure another wireless device (phone) connects to the same
   router without a problem
5. making sure that wpa_supplicant does not run
6. Ethernet works fine so it is not a general networking issue
7. tried connecting with WiFiRadar, wlassistant - to no avail

None of the above makes any difference.

Has anyone encountered anything similar? Any suggestions for things I
should try?

For completeness here is ifcfg-wlan0 (asterisks mask irrelevant
identifying info):

TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=yes
IPV6INIT=no
NM_CONTROLLED=no
MODE=Managed
RATE=auto
HWADDR=**:**:**:**:**:**
KEY_MGMT=WPA-PSK
DEFROUTE=yes
PEERDNS=yes
PEERROUTES=yes
DHCP_HOSTNAME=******
IPV4_FAILURE_FATAL=yes
NAME="wlan0"
ESSID=
CHANNEL=

I played with NM_CONTROLLED, KEY_MGMT (disabled security), and ESSID
(setting to specific value).

Thanks,

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | pub at goldshmidt.org