[X4U] Bizarre Airport related problems

[Andrew Lynch]

 I have a 1Ghz TiBook, running 10.4.3. It has run flawlessley for almost three years now.

When I log in at home, it hangs. Beachball of death. When I log in at work, all is well. It also worked (of course) when I went in to the Palo Alto Genius bar.

If the airport card is turned off, or not configured, the system works everywhere.

My work provided Dell D600 laptop associates properly with my home network wirelessly. The router is a Linksys BEFSW11-S4.

The hang persists even if all wireless devices in my home are powered off. (Telephones, microwaves, routers...)

I reinstalled 10.4.3 from scratch on an external drive. The problem persists.

The hanging process has moved around: It has been configd, SystemUIServer and airport, as reported by Activity Monitor.
Once the system hangs, there is no recourse but force shutdown using the power button.

To recover, I must reboot in single user or safe mode, remove /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, and reboot, then unconfigure the airport card.

At this point I think I may have more than one problem obfuscating the issue. However, it is completely clear that the problem only occurs at my home, and can be toggled by whether or not the airport card is configured and turned on.

This problem also exists on an iMac with an airport card, and a Pismo Powerbook with an airport card, although I have not verified that these two systems work in other locations.

Befuddled in Sunnyvale,
   Drew
---
Andrew T. Lynch