"Pheasant PluckerŪ" wrote in message
...
Hi there,
I use a3Com3CWRDR100A-72 router that has worked faultlessly with many
devices in my house;
W2K laptop
XP Tablet PC x 2
iPAQ 2210 & Socket CF Wi-Fi card
iPAQ 4700
XBOX 360
PS3
Nevo SL
Momento Digital picture frame x 2
20+ visiting laptops etc. etc.
You get the idea ;^)
I use MAC Address filtering for security.
However I have a brand new Sony VGN-FZ21Z that will not connect
wirelessly
to it...well sometimes it has but most of the time it doesn't,
Timeout exchanging secondary keys by any chance? My new Toshiba has a
very similar problem when running Vista with WPA-PSK at home. About 1%
of the time it connects the rest it sees perfect signal does the
initial key exchange and then bombs out with a timeout waiting for
server (exactly the same model as yours). The portable has Intel
3945ABG WiFi chipset with 11.5.0.32 driver at present (others have
tried different drivers to no avail).
It seems to be much worse if it has suspended due to inactivity since
power up. I have tried disabling the power down WiFi to save power
option but that didn't seem to make any difference.
I have the router set to broadcast SSID and the FZ21Z sees it OK.
With no encryption the FZ21Z will not automatically connect after coming
out
of standby or being shut down.
UsingWPAit has managed to connect probably 2 times out of 20 but
mostly
it
fails - the log reporting a timeout error.
I have a Sony VAIO VGN-N38Z sat next to it that is fine even when the
SSID
is not broadcasting.
This is driving me crazy...to help my sanity and my hair can some kind
soul
offer some help/advice/tips please?
I am inclined to blame MS Vista and 3Com about equally for this one
since at present I cannot find anything obviously useful on either of
their respective knowledgebase sites. Although I intend to try out one
WPA related hotfix (see below). And I can find lots of people
complaining of this or very similar timeout problems when using WPA
with Vista on various platforms and in combination with various
routers.
It seems crazy to have to deliberately downgrade security to WEP just
so that new hardware using Vista can connect to an existing WPA
network. I think the problem I have may be described obliquely in the
following MSKB:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935222/en-us
I have yet to obtain this hotfix and apply it. The other one that
seems to cause trouble a bit later on after you get the encryption
sorted out is a DHCP in Vista SNAFU. Details on that one at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us
I expect that there are some others cunningly hidden on the MSKB site
in such a way that using the obvious keywords for the problem will not
find the right solution
Regards,
Martin Brown