Bright House Networks - Legacy → Orlando Lightning wireless help request

In Orlando. Newly installed Lightning voice/data/wireless modem installed (Ubee DVW3201B) . Hardwire working well. Have some issues with wireless not connecting on one laptop (Acer Aspire One XP Home) Called Tech Support and have gotten cut off 3x from good techs when they forgot I was on the VOIP line and reset the modem remotely.

Trying to use WPA2 AES and it works on an older XP Pro laptop but not the netbook which was working fine on a Dnet DIR 655 (also WPA2-AES) until I shifted to the new one this AM.

Acer shows connected to gateway via ipconfig from prompt. Cannot ping the gateway though. Getting limited or no connectivity error. Sending packets but only 2 received. Arrrggghhh! Have uninstalled the wireless adapter/reinstalled. Driver is latest version, tried removing and resetting the connection, rebooted a zillion times and other tricks that normally work. I do SysAdmin on 4K member email server, but this one has stumped me for 8 hrs.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
kmacker

Does the laptops wifi work when the encryption is either WAP or not enabled?

Kmacker send me a PM with your modem MAC and your IP address and I will be in touch tomorrow to assist with this.

Yes, Thanks for suggestion. I tried this but will try again. Problem seems to be that it is not able to "talk" /"handshake" after initial connection established. Wish I had a good log to look at on this.

Thanks,
kmacker

Just sent a PM to you. Thank you very much for input. Please let me know if PM didn't make it.

THanks,
kmacker

Is this the only wireless device you have?

I have another laptop running win xp pro and it can connect. Also have an older linux laptop have not booted for over one year though.

tnx,
kmacker

Please check that you have the latest and proper wifi drivers for the Acer. Normally this is cause of this issue. Also to isolate further turn off security on the modem completely and see if you can connect.

OK. Will try that. I did uninstall and reinstall the wifi adapter and the driver is latest. It was connecting the morning before the upgrade to a Dnet DIR-655 router with WPA2 AES so has worked fine until this upgrade. My gut feel is the DHCP server in the Ubee modem is dog slow and times out. Rebooting and will try shortly.

good thoughts... seems to be this netbook that's struggling. But I sense the issue is how it is resolving the IP that's the choke point. Just setup a log to see what's going on as I restart.

tnx,
kmacker

With all encryption off, the netbook connects. So something is off in either the encryption of the router or netbook... now to figure out which and what is going on here.

any ideas on how to narrow it down?

tnx,
kmacker

Do this...with wifi security open and connected to the ubee get your settings and then hard set them in your network config for the Acer..meaning static IP, gateway, mask etc and see if that works...if that doesn't I'll arrange for a modem swap to a Surfboard.

will give it a go. In process of trying WPA-psk only but looks like same issue as wpa2-psk ... ain't computers fun? 8^o

tnx,
kmacker

I am not a fan of wirless anyway...this is one of many reasons on my list

Ha! Well the WPA-PSK didn't work either. So will try to hard code the Acer... if I understand you properly, it is just on the ACER side? I don't see a way to do it on the Ubee.

tnx,
kmacker

I hard coded IP, Mask, DNS, and WPA2-AES passkey into the Acer. Still no joy. Says it connects, but marginally... limited or no error.

ipconfig shows the connection details, but like before, no activity for the received side. only 2 packets and holding while sent packets climbs slowly as it idles. So wierd.

I have a Dnet router here. Think I'll just connect it using one of the ports on the Ubee and run it for the acer if I can get it reconfigured.

At this point, I don't know if a modem swap is needed and hate to add to the hassles.

Appreciate all your input on this. Like you, I prefer hardwire, except when I want to sit in the recliner and surf while watching boring political debates and bad movies.

thanks much,
kmack

Okay I'll be in touch via PM. Please PM me your availability over the next couple of days.

I'm a big fan of wireless. My game pc is wired for minimum lag issues, but the household has 2 PCs, 3 laptops, and my ipod/phone working over wifi. Till just recently I had been using WAP encryption for 802.11b support. Finally replaced my old b's with cheap 802.11n transmitters and quickly jacked encryption up to wpa2 with no problems.

I tell ya though, working with old wifi hardware is like a loaded gun. Many liked to install their own config programs because XP didn't have its own until service pack 2, and the majority of these programs are UGLY and probably break in the likes of windows 7/vista environment.

In a case like this, I would find out which chipset the acer wifi is using and try and locate updated drivers for it that way. Acer's site is probably not the best place.

Thanks JeffMD!

I did try a driver from the adapter chipset mfg but it would not load. Think it requires the Acer driver to run the hardware switch that turns wifi on and off plus links it to the rest of the system. Shucks. So the Acer driver is the only one that worked.

I suspect something is whacky in the way the Acer WPA2 parses the handshake with the Ubee modem. It works great with my DLink router but not with the Ubee. Computers is fun, eh?

kmacker

kmacker, did you put the old dnet 655 back in to verify that indeed the nettop does have a functional wpa2 support and works fine? if it does then there is a definite incompatibility with your new router that won't be fixed by new drivers really.

Found an interesting post on the issue here too..
»www.theacerguy.com/forum ··· wpa2-aes

Yes, I did that earlier and it does connect the ACER and DLink work. SO it is a HW issue on my side and not BHN's problem other than the Ubee modem hates the Acer handshake.

Blessings JeffMD!

kmacker

Kmacker has an appt today to wrap this up