WAP54Gs with WPA not handing out IPs from SBS2003 server

Good afternoon -

I've got a client I've set up a wifi network for. It's a domain
network, with SBS2k3 as the DHCP server. We added two Linksys WAP54Gs
(replacing a USR5451 AP/Router and Dell TrueMobile 1184 AP/Router that
were nothing but trouble, and didn't support WPA). It's on a private
range, 192.168.0.x, wired computers all working as they ought to, and
most wireless computers working as they ought to. We're using WPA-PSK
w/ TKIP (an upgrade from the WEP they were using).

Here's the fun part. I've got 4 laptops which aren't able to pull IP
addresses. They find the wireless network, they connect (using the PSK
over WPA), and then they sit trying to obtain IP addys for (seemingly)
days. The traffic counters (either in the WZC util or in the
card-specific utility) show passing traffic - that is to say the
counters increase as time goes on - but an IP is never received.
Specifying a manual IP address leads us to successfully connecting, and
/appearing/ to have a full connection, but not being able to ping
anything except for the single specified IP. Can't ping router, can't
ping the AP's IP, can't ping the server - only the IP we configure
manually.

The machines that were having issues were all Dells, until my laptop
(an HP) took on the same symptoms today. The four computers
experiencing the trouble are -

- Dell Inspiron 6000 w/ a Dell Wireless 1350 WLAN Mini-PCI card (rev
4.5)
- Dell Latitude D620 w/ an Intel Pro Wireless 3945ABG
- Dell Inspiron 600m with an Intel Pro Wilress 2200BG
and an HP Pavilion ze4500 with a Broadcom 802.11b/g card (thats as
specific as the device mgr gets - and I bought it used, so I haven't
looked into it further).

I have also discovered that plugging in a Netgear PCMCIA card will
allow one the computers (the Inspiron 6000) to connect right away, no
questions asked. Pop the same card into the Latitude D620, and I've
got the problem again. The WAPs are each configured as Access Points,
rather than bridges, repeaters, etc. I've taken one of the APs and
made it a seperate SSID as a testbed to find out wtf is going on. I
can reproduce the problem no matter what length key, how often the key
renews, TKIP or AES, SSID, or channel we use.

In bulleted points, here's what we know so far:

- The APs /do/ work - most computers can connect without issue.
- When I drop encryption, either entirely or down to WEP, the computers
that are having issues can connect without fail.
- As soon as we bring up WPA, either with TKIP or AES, the trouble is
reproducable.
- All the computers are using the latest drivers, bios revisions,
firmware, etc.
- The APs are using the latest firmware (3.04)
- When I use a PCMCIA card on the Dell Inspiron 6000, it works fine
- When I use the same PCMCIA card on the Dell Latitude D620, it has the
same problem.
- Linksys Tech-to-Tech Partner support, and the Dell Gold Support
department (and their support people) are all stumped. The Linksys guy
I talked to said he saw the problem once, but bringing it up to the
latest drivers/firmware fixed it. No joy this time.

Anyone seen anything like this? Anyone have any suggestions? We're
boggled over here.

NM

.

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