I started to put this in the Tech Forum since I'm really just venting, but then I thought it might save someone else someday. We were configuring a load of new ThinkPads and had some issues with a wireless card. I think most of us have been to that place where this wireless access point connects with every other computer just fine, and this computer connects to every other access point just fine, but the two won't play well together. Well I really thought that is what I had here; but then it got wierd.
So get this, the WAP is using MAC Filtering, so I open the MAC Filter and let the WAP capture the MAC so I know that what's printed on the card is really the MAC. I verify time after time, and it's correct. I open the filter, it connects. I enable the filter, and no joy. Then on a fluke I start sniffing packets and watching how long it's taking before it gives up. This WAP, a Cisco E4200 as 32 MAC Filter slots. This computer was going into slot 29. On a hunch I move it to slot 1, and slot 1 to slot 29. Yep, you guessed it. I played with it a little more and apparently the processor is too slow to process all 32 slots before the device trying to connect times out. Nothing on this WAP past 28 is usable.
