Vista / modem problem

[bonuschief]

Running Vista on Vaio, but having problems with modem. Google suggest it's a known problem with Vista and WPA. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[rich912]

Hi bonuschief,

Given your model number and the problem(s) you are experiencing with the modem someone here may be able to help…

Rich

[bonuschief]

Thanks for your response. It's a neighbour that's having the problem. He's running Vista on a Vaio laptop. Can access web using wired cocnnection. However, cannot access with wifi (makes connection ok, but says "local access only"). This apparently is a known prob with Vista and WPA; Microsoft have a hotfix. The hotfix will download ok but won't install - it says "hotfix incompatible with system". Thanks, Frank

[rich912]

Hi Frank,

Have you tried setting encryption on the router to either WPA and WPA2, or WPA2 only? This will depend on available settings but here is a screenshot of the options available to me. You will need to set WPA2- personal and encryption type AES on the computer.

This works fine on all Vista based PC's in the house.

Rich

[bonuschief]

Many thanks.

Will definitely give that a try. (The problem is the neighbour's so will need to wait until tomorrow).

The funny thing is that the connection was working away perfectly until recently – suddenly stopped working. (Via Google, it appears this is an intermittent problem, and - in a couple of cases - turning on/off the (external) wireless switch triggered the problem initially). Incidentally, we have a laptop running Vista here and is working perfectly.

(Have never changed a setting on router before, but looks straight-forward enough).

Many thanks,

Frank

[rich912]

Hi Frank,

Before you go down the route of changing router settings first make sure that wireless hasn't been disabled in Vaio Smart Network - double click the icon in the system tray or open Vaio Control Center to access options. I raise this as you mention turning off the wireless switch - this may have turned off the software wireless switch.

Rich

[bonuschief]

Thanks - will double-check this, (but suspect it's more than this; the wifi connects okay but it gives the "local access only" warning).

Again, many thanks for your help.

Frank

[bonuschief · Accepted solution]

Thankfully this has now been resolved. The solution was to update a driver. Many thanks for the assistance. Frank

[rich912]

Hi bonuschief,

Good to hear that the problem is solved.

I’m surprised that an ‘updated’ driver was required and therefore wonder whether the original driver was corrupt.

Rich

[bonuschief]

My (limited) understanding is that the driver was out-of-date. There's is evidently a problem with Vista and WPA, so maybe an update was implemented to a driver (possibly a number of years ago)....? There seems to have been a lot of activity on this issue around 2007/8 - but very little more recently. Presumably the problem was resolved in later machines/systems.

Doing the research (Google), I came across two other incidents where the problem was triggered by turning the wifi switch on/offf (external switch); I can only guess that some feature of the driver is invoked when wifi is turned on initially, so any issues remain dormant until the switch is used.

The Laptop isn't mine (is a neighbour's), so I'm by no means certain of the full facts. It's a number of years old, and I think is only used for email.

But the good news is it's back working.....(at least for the moment).

Regards,

Frank