The Acer Guy Forum

The Acer Guy Forum » Problem corner

1. 

   Posted by: christerdk
   Member

   Hi everyone,

   Just started my girlfriends brand new Acer Aspire ONE 150D with Windows XP Home SP3. Initial setup went nice and easy and I was just about to pop the champagne when I ran into an interesting problem...

   For some reason, our wifi endpoint does not show up in the list of wifi networks on the Aspire ONE. It can recognize some (selected) other networks in the area, but the one of this house is just not in the list.

   I've tried setting up the the wifi connection manually with no luck.
   I've also been to the Acer web site, and i found out that the drivers for the Broadcom wifi card was from 2007(!) So I updated to the lastest driver version (4.170.75.0 from 2008), but still without any luck. (As a side note I find it odd, that a machine manufactured in march 2009 doesn't have the latest driver...)

   The funny thing is, that I'm writing this from my own Acer TravelMate 6292 on the very wifi network that the Apire ONE cannot see. My girlfriend has also connected successfully with her Aspire 5050 with no problem.
   The internet provider is Telefonica (Spain) and it's their router. I have no certain idea about what kind of wifi networks it supports, but since we can connect with the older Acer machince, I find it fair to assume that the new one should be able to as well, no? (I'm getting 54 connection here on this computer, so i'm guessing 802.11g, which the broadcom in the aspire one should be compatible with).

   The background for the need for "prompt help" is that we're moving to Scandinavia on monday and wanted to get the Spanish Aspire ONE before leaving Spain (as it has the Spanish keyboard layout). Now, as you might understand, we're desperate to find out if there's a solution to this problem or if we should return it before leaving... therefore our prompt need ;-)

   Many thanks in advance!
   Christer

   Posted 2 years ago #
2. 

   Posted by: christerdk
   Member

   Update: We have no access to the admin of the router, but I've found that it's a ZyXEL Prestige 660H-D1.

   The router should be compatible with the following wifi standards:
   IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11g+
   as seen on this page: http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:ZyXEL%20Prestige%20660HW-D1%20Router:1994834113:page=details;_ylt=AooygTVldvZ1pnYxWSbgHBgSdIUD

   Can it really be, that the Aspire ONE doesn't support these standards and therefore cannot see the network?

   Posted 2 years ago #
3. 

   Posted by: Acer_x243w_user
   Member

   Hi,

   Try setting the network ID (called the SSID) manually. It is the name of the router's network that the other windows machine can see. For example, say the name of the network was "network99", as shown in the list of networks on the other Windows machines, you can enter it manually, along with any security settings (wep, wpa-psk/tkip, etc)

   follow this guide to do this:

   http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/findingusinghotspots/ss/wificonnecttut.htm

   make sure that the information you put in matches that which you have in the other machines. After all, those ones work, so these settings should work too.

   ........

   Who set up the router? You said you don't have access to the administrative interface.... How was it setup up initially?

   It is possible, if you didn't set it up, that the SSID broadcast is turned off, in which case you will not see the name in the wireless list in Windows. If someone else set it up, they may have done it this way, and manually set the SSID and other network settings for you (like a technician from your ISP or something).

   If someone else did set it up, and they set it up "properly", you might have trouble, as there should be security settings enabled (wep, wpa, etc) which will prevent you from connecting, unless you know those key-passwords.

   Also, it may be that the DHCP server (gives addresses to computers on network)is not accepting any more clients on the network. Again, this is something set in the admin interface to limit the number of computers that connect. It may be set just to 2.... you'll need to get into the router to change that.

   It may be that addresses must be set manually, and you'll need to find out the address scope. The scope might be set to only include 2 client addresses....

   You see, there are quite a few variables here, we need to know more. See if you can find out the admin password.

   Posted 2 years ago #
4. 

   Posted by: christerdk
   Member

   Thank you for your feedback.

   I'll do whatever possible to get into the admin of the router tomorrow by calling the internet provider, to play around with the SSID as you suggest.

   The initial router setup was pretty out-of-the box: you get it from the internet provider, plug it in, and badabing, you have a network to connect to, cable and wifi. As far as I can remember, there was no manual setup when connecting the other computers to the network. However, as mentioned in my previous post, I did try to set op a wifi connection manually on the Aspire ONE, that is, creating a profile with correct SSID, wep key index and, of course, the key itself. No luck. It's really odd. Of course, my girl and I are quite eerie to get an answer to all this nonsense :)
   With regards to setting up the older Acer machines, I can say that I set my own up on the network. No technician was involved in that. It was pretty simple, because the internet provider has put the wep password under the router. I've done whatever I can to re-check the settings between a machine that can see the network and get online and the Aspire ONE, you know, encryption type and all that, but with absolutely no luck.

   The things you mention about the DHCP might sense, however, 2 clients sound awfull low. But anything's possible, of course. I've tried to connect with no-one on the net however, so I don't know how much that theory will hold water.

   The current name is WLAN_39. With the Aspire ONE I can see other networks with the WLAN_ prefix in the area (Telefonica is popular). Even though no more addresses might be available, would that actually stop the wifi from showing up on the list?

   I've noticed some advanced settings in the broadcom driver settings. Would it be an idea to investigate these further? As far as I can remember, wasn't some routers released with some proprietary high speed wifi protocols, that never were "real" standards? Could it be such an issue, perhaps? One of the seetings, for example, is set to "802.11b only"... should i change that? And should I set a specific speed instead of sort of "highest possible"? Etc. etc.

   Thanks in advance! :-)

   Posted 2 years ago #
5. 

   Posted by: Acer_x243w_user
   Member

   Like you say, anything is possible.

   When the Wifi card is set to look for networks, it will scan both the b and g channels basically at the same time... I don't think it is likely to be set to b only or to some weird "super g" setting... but you can always look for that setting, you never know. Certainly the router could be set to G only or B only or to N only. That is a real possibility. if it is set to G and the Broadcom were only a B card, that would be a problem, but I doubt it is in this case.

   Also, I wonder if there might be other WLAN_39s in the area... possible conflict? maybe.

   Also, if MAC address filtering is enabled it would prevent you from connecting too... another possibility.

   once you get the admin login, we'll have a better handle on the settings available, and be able to eliminate some of the possibilities.

   Posted 2 years ago #
6. 

   Posted by: christerdk
   Member

   Hey guys,

   Just a small follow up. As noted earlier we went back to Scandinavia right after my last post. We've now tried with a different wifi-router and it works perfectly.

   So, I guess it was something in the setup of the previous router, that the laptop wasn't compatible with.

   Consider this thread closed - we'll return if we get that behaviour again :-)

   Thank you so much for your time spent on helping us!

   Kind regards,
   Christer & Lydia

   Posted 2 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.