[ltp] strange behaviour of wireless

[Arno Trautmann]

Hi all,

I'm having some trouble with my wireless connection that I don't 
understand at all; I hope, you can help me even if I cannot offer clean 
technical details. The machine is X61s with a recent Arch Linux.
Description of the symptoms:
• Connecting at home to a WEP-encrypted network works, but /only/ at the 
second attempt. The first attempt to use dhcpcd times out every time, 
while the second one always works fine and immediately.
• Having connected at home once, I am not able to connect to any other 
network, it just times out everytime. Only rebooting works. This is 
/only/ after connecting at home; using two other networks is no problem, 
and from another network to home works, too (again, only the second attempt)
• Trying to reboot in such a situation (connecting to another network, 
timed out) mostly just halts with a message about IRQ #17. However, 
after the last update, I get a lot more messages. If they are important, 
I can try to write them down.
• Ok, so far I'd just say “stupid Linux, doesn't work” (or rather 
“stupid user, doesn't configure correctly”). But now comes the part that 
doesn't make any sense to me: Whenever I connect to my home network, my 
rommates cannot. In fact, their machines don't even see the radiation 
any more. As soon as I disconnect, they have excellent signal strengths 
and connect immediately. When I reconnect, they're out, again.

I hope somebody could help me here or tell me what information you need 
to help me!

cheers
Arno