Bad access point

Over the last couple days one of the wireless access points at my office died. Well, it took three days or so to convince me it was going out. We don't have the most amazing network, so I suspected that first. Then, it would work for a while before it quit. Maddening.

I tried to diagnose whether it was the network connection on the back of the access point. It kept acting good while I was playing with it then taking an hour or two to fail. When I tried it on a different wall jack, it seemed to work. It is one of those situations that simply requires some trial and error. Remember, there is a bunch of other stuff going on while dealing with Th's.

The solution was to give up and modify another access point to take the questionable device's place. This was much better because the best replacement I had to hand was a much higher quality wireless access point.

The better access point had to be configured. It had an old configuration. I had to plug the Ethernet wire in to a laptop and run a program called Wireshark, there are others, while switching on the access point to figure out what IP the device had set. Don't bather setting an IP on the laptop. Start the capture, ignore DHCP and other garbage going by. Look for the only real looking IP that goes by. That should be your access point's IP address.

The project was was a snap once I abandon the first access point. Fitting and using the second one was quite easy. Hey, people seem happy for the moment.

Did I mention this is the access point in my office?