Capture wireless association and authentication frames

[Iain]

I'd like to get my head around the wireless association and authentication process. I set up 2 laptops, each with a wireless card (one Netgear WG511T and the other Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG) and a Netgear router/AP. I ran Wireshark and collected traffic. I tried Wireshark in both Windows XP and Linux and tried the capture process using both wireless cards but I didn't collect any beacons, probes or the assocation process. The only traffic that I captured was a number of EAPOL frames when the capturing laptop actually authenticated.

I hoped to be able to collect all the beacons, probes and other management frames when both laptops associated and authenticated. I set the wireless cards in both promiscuous and monitor mode ... but nada.

Any suggestions? As I say, all I want to do is collect then analyse the traffic within my own wireless network. I do not plan to access other wireless networks.