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I'm having trouble connecting to the WiFi in my new house.

I'm sure I'm getting everything right - right network ID, right password type, right password (copied directly from the router's config page after I ran a cable to it) etc.

Signal strength is a little low (2/5 bars in XP, 2/4 in Linux mint).

On both operating systems, trying to connect just seems to time out.

I can't SEE any MAC filter list in the config pages of the router.

Is there anything in XP or Mint that will let me see what's going on during the connection, so I can get more of an idea why it's failing? Or is the WiFi handshake going to be essentially opaque at any level I can see?

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Router brand/model? – hyperslug Jul 12 '10 at 22:03
Ehm, it's an Inventel Livebox. (Never heard of them either. It's a combi ADSL modem / wireless router / print server / internet television box?) No-one else in the house has issues connecting. – Rawling Jul 12 '10 at 22:12
What OS's are successful? Vista? 7? OSX? You matched the security type accurately? WPA, WPA2-AES, WPA2-TKIP, etc. – hyperslug Jul 13 '10 at 1:03
Not sure on that first point, but I'm certain I matched the security type properly (WPA TKIP). – Rawling Jul 13 '10 at 7:33
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In Linux (any Linux) you can find relevant information in the log files /var/log/messages and/or /var/log/syslog. 'dmesg' command should also help.

So, try to connect, let it fail, then look at the last few lines of those files.

In a console, you can try 'tail -n 50 /var/log/messages' and look for something wireless related. If your wifi card is "wlan0" look for lines related to "wlan0" ... there is no exact info here.

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Ah, brilliant. dmesg told me that the AP was actually denying me access. Prompted by that, on further Googling I found there's a button on the box you have to press before you can associate with it. – Rawling Jul 13 '10 at 16:37
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