Re: [Hampshire] eeePC 900 WiFi problem

Brian Chivers wrote:
> alan c wrote:
>> I have just received an eeepc 900 - really good news :-)
>>
>> However, I now discover that it has what looks like a generic problem
>> connecting to encrypted wifi networks! Open networks apparently are
>> ok. I have had no success this morning with a WEP network at the cafe
>> in town, and they even rebooted their system for me, just in case it
>> was that. Someone else was online with no problem.
>>
>> There are quite a lot of postings about non connection, with a few
>> apparent things to try. They have not yet worked for me though.
>>
>> I have very little experience with wireless anyway, so I am having to
>> catch up on lack of know how, and for various reasons I will not be
>> able to follow it up far a week or so now anyway.
>>
>> I am peeved to say the least that a product such as the eeePC with
>> Asus custom Xandros should give any trouble at all!

> I've got my eee701 connected without problems on my WPA2-psk network so
> it must be the eee900 changing the wireless card.

The forums have a lot of comments that in some networks there is no
problem, yet in others there is. There seems to be poor error checking
and handling, in the GUI - which I am using - of passwords/phrases. In
fact on some occasions this morning there was a log message including
that the password coffeeshop (ok, you know it now) was an invalid
length or in another situation something like unsupported wireless
key. However, the key was typed correctly, and there was another
punter next to me using it ok. And the shop assistant offered to type
it in herself, just to be sure :-) sweet. Perhaps I just look daft.

I was interested to see that as I typed the key text in character by
character, at one stage a particular key format was recognised. This
was at the stage of having typed
coffe
and it was recognised as a type
WEP64 bit in ASCII format
but as I then continued to type the subsequent characters, no format
was recognised. I do not know how this information might fit in with
the problems I and others seem to be finding.

The wireless card itself works I guess because mine shows nearby
networks ok and is reported to have no problems in non encrypted
conditions by others.

I do not use wireless at home, hence my lack of experience about
stuff. I expect to use the eeepc in the wlid, or in cafes and
hotspots, at least.... so to find it does not work in Waterstones
bookshop cafe in bracknell is a bummer. I have not tried muckdonalds
yet, nor any paid for spots. Other 'hotspots' I have used on campsites
etc get a connection configured by using a browser at ffirst, then a
key. I suppose that the local router is open and the encryption is
beyond that maybe.
--
alan cocks
Kubuntu user#10391
Linux user #360648