When one reads the complaints about WiFi connection on this forum, there is sometimes a feeling that this is an eee phenomenon.  According to the BBC this is a wider phenomenon - see this article

I'm convinced that the EEE wifi has, at minimum, some serious and troublesome "quirks".

wi-fi is a lousy technology in many ways and has never lived up to its hype.  I live in Minneapolis and you may have read about its "successfull" new municipal wi-fi system.   Hold your applause.  It's not complete - basically hardly anyone has tried it yet - and performance and reliability are open questions.  I seriously doubt the vendor's commitment and I also doubt that the city has the resolve, or the resources, to make this a long-term success.  Once the real maintainance costs are out in the open, there will be big trouble.

On the other hand, it's basically senseless for every private home, school, business and coffee shop in town to be configuring and maintaining a zoo of diverse routers, which then meets up with another zoo of wifi chipsets. That road can lead to madness, as can be seen from the countless wi-fi posts this forum.  There should be a uniform, city-wide wireless network; it's just that wi-fi  technology isn't the one to use.

What was the last time you plugged in an ethernet cable and it didn't work?  It doesn't happen very often.

I'm no expert but I suspect the cell phone companies control most of the spectrum that could have been used to create something better.

Last edited by jim_h (2008-04-16 11:07:27 am)

tarekahf wrote:

alanbcohen wrote:

I've had sporadic problems finding a network where I know there is one.  I find that cycling the WiFi on and off with the function key, then refreshing the available networks solves the problem.

I have exactly the same problem.

Sometimes when I scan for Networks, some of them are detected, and some are not. When I turn off/on the WiFi, then refresh, all are detected.

I am not sure what is the criteria when (why) some networks are not found and other are found, but seems that the Secured Networks are always found. In some other times, it looks like some networks with names like "linksys", "Wireless", "Costa Coffee", "Casper&Gambinies" are always not found, but "Traders", "TarekNet" and some other are always found.... sounds a little bit funny, right ?
...
...
Any one can help me troubleshoot this problem I truly appreciate it.

Tarek.

I think I am able to find a pattern for the problem I reported above: "Certain WiFi Networks are not detected during a scan, but you can still connect to them if they are listed under 'Network Connections'. To solve the problem, just turn off/on the WiFi, and then all networks are detected."

This problem will occur if one or more of the following conditions are true:

1. The power/charger is not connected,

2.  The batter is not 100% full,

3.  Charging is started while the battery is not nearly empty (partially full).

4. Not following a healthy pattern for charging the Battery.

...then the problem will occur.

But, since the above conditions cannot be measured or because it is very difficult to find a reproducible scenario, then I cannot say that the above is 100% correct. 

During the past period, I started following ideal/healthy pattern for charging the battery. Before this period, I was not following this pattern. I mean, I wait until the battery is nearly empty, then make sure to perform Full Charge. When it is fully charged, I keep the changer connected if possible, and when it is not 100% charged, I wait until it is empty.

Also, another thing I did is that I uninstalled CrossOver Trial Version a couple of weeks ago, but not sure if this is related.

In all other cases, the Eee WiFi is much better than most other Laptops and other Adapters.

Tarek.

Last edited by tarekahf (2008-04-17 8:16:47 am)

I just bought my EEE yesterday, and I did have problems right away at home. I use WPA2 (TIK AES I believe; dd-wrt router), and couldn't get a connection. I normally use a very long password (with @#$% numbers capitals and all), but couldn't get it working. So I changed my password to something like asdf1234 and that worked. I tried to shorten the original one, but that didn't do it. Now I'm using the stupid one, just to be able to use it, but I'm going to test this more thoroughly the next week.

While I initially had some problems, they turned out to be largely self-inflicted. Forgot my WPA Passphrase ... <sigh>. However, the eee PC seems to forget to remember the passphrase periodically and needs to be reminded (after software updates). So I've shifted my vote to 2. mostly always connects

Cross posting. Also, Homebrew correctly pointed out the misusage of "Subnet mask" I use it here because this is how the dialogue box is labelled. Hoping you find this helpful.

I had the same issue. The subnet mask sets itself, as did yours above, to 255.255.255.255. The subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0. I configured mine by bringing up the properties for the iface and under the TCP/IP tab, switching "config method" to static. I plugged in an IP addr +100[+number of devices on wireless network+1] (if you have a windowz machine, use its ip addr plus... Set your subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 and gateway the same as your windowz machine. If you don't have a windowz machine, it should be the same as your DSL router. DNS tab should be the same two first octets.0.1  You can keep your encryption and everything on the wireless tab.

Good luck.

Only problem so far is where the WPA-passphrase contain space(s).

i have never had an issue connecting to a wifi spot that was functioning properly for me to connect to.
i have made no mods out of the box.
i have had my 4G since the end of march 08

I have already posted to one of the problem threads, but I'd like to comment here.

First, I was impressed that the 24/7 tech support folks answered promptly on Sunday morning.  The response was helpful, quickly pointing me to a wiki page that was very close to what I was experiencing.

Second, I agree that out of the box there is a configuration problem affecting WPA.  I may be an extreme case, since my router has spaces in the SSID, and my passphrase contains two exclamation marks "!!".  Yes, I could change this, but I feel that is the wrong approach for two reasons.  First, I've had it that way for at least 6 months, and there are systems here that regularly connect from a Mac, Windows XP and Ubuntu and none of them has any trouble.  Second, I may find myself somewhere attempting to use a router that I cannot 'fix'.

I got my eeePC to connect to my router by becomming the superuser and using wpa_cli to set my passphrase.  I did this after several hours chasing around at terminal prompts, trying to figure out why my passphrase was always converted to hexadecimal incorrectly.  For me, this is the cause of the "NO DHCPOFFER, pending" problem.  My system it able to trade packets with my WPA2 router, but it will not deliver the passphrase correctly, and so I am never authenticated.

However, "wpa_cli password <SSID> <PASSPHRASE> [enter]" works in the blink of an eye, at least while the system is still in the "pending" mode.  I was not able to figure out how to correct the /usr/sbin/xandros-wpa-config script, but I strongly believe that this is where my problem needs to be addressed.

No problems at all with WLAN using the default xandros OS.

I installed a Netgear wireless-G router a couple of days ago and haven't had any problems with connecting to the WiFi.  I also connected to the WiFi at school and it worked just fine.

Works like a charm and has a very good signal quality!

Only used it on open and WEP connections, not tried WPA yet.
I find it much better than my traditional Fujitsu XP based laptop.

One big plus is that it shows all access points not just one per SSD
So in our main office we have about 5 options for our internal wifi
network. The first couple were almost fully utilised but by selecting
the last one, showing 100%, I got a good stable connection for
2 hours, whereas normally I get drop outs after 20 minutes or
so on XP.