ndiswrapper/iwconfig cannot use wirelss router any longer

[Ryan Thiessen]

Hello,

My wife and I both use Ubuntu Hoary on our laptops.  Recently I
upgraded the firware on our Actiontec gt701-wg DSL modem/router and
sadly she is no longer able to connect to the router any longer.  My
laptop can connect to it fine, and she can still connect to the
neighbours open "linksys" connection just fine.  So I have ruled out
the router not working (because I can use it) and ruled out
ndiswrapper not working (because she can use it with another
connection).

Her system is a Dell Latitude 5150 with a Truemobile 1350 wireless
(broadcom chip) that is known to work fine with Ubuntu... and indeed
this was the case with us until this week.  We are using the stock
hoary version of ndiswrapper, and have tried all of the various
options on the ubuntu wireless guide for the .inf files.  Running
"iwlist wlan0 scan" and she can see the access point just fine.  We're
running WEP, tried the essid broadcasting both on and off.

When I boot it up I modprobe ndiswrapper, and iwconfig can see the
card as it connects by default to the open "linksys" connection.  I
then try to "iwconfig wlan0 essid ournetwork", but this puts the
connection into "Any" mode.  I can set the key just fine, but still I
cannot input a essid using iwconfig at all.  Interestingly, once I
have done this I cannot reset it back to "linksys", which leads me to
suspect that something has gone wrong with the driver itself.

Does anyone know how to debug ndiswrapper so I can figure out what the
cause of the problems are?  I've checked the usual places and can't
find any useful information -- dmesg, /var/log/syslog look correct and
give no indication of failure.  any tips to point me in the right
direction would be helpful.

-- 
Cheers,
-Ryan Thiessen-