Acer Iconia A1-830

Monkman911

I recently bought an Acer Iconia A1-830 and now it won't connect to my WiFi router unless I am 2 feet from the router. All of the other devices in my house are working fine. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a tablet.

 

Thank you in advance!

IronFly

the tablet can see the wifi and can't connect or it never see the wifi network?

 

are you using N or G protocol on your wireless router?

Monkman911

It sees the Netgear 95 router fine, but if the tablet isn't literally 2 feet from the router it says "Out of range" and won't connect.

IronFly

try this:

settings/wifi

tap on the 3 dots in the upper screen or long press on the soft touch button with 2 squares, select Advanced and disable WiFi optimization.

 

try again to connect.

 

if you still have the issue, i suspect an hardware issue.

 

you can try to do a factory reset but i doubt it will solve it, since your device is brand new.

Monkman911

WiFi Optimization is turned off and already tried the reset. I'm guessing that the antenna was not seated/soldered correctly when it was built. Pretty expensive paper weight. Thanks for trying though Ironfly. Are there any Acer employees on here ever, or is it just consumers helping each other? 

IronFly

95% consumers, 5% acer employees

 

By the way, i would contact your seller if you bought the A1 recently and check if they can change it with another, then contact Acer support if the seller can't do anything.

Monkman911

Just pulled out the receipt, bought 11/5/14 from Best Buy. Alread contacted Acer Supprt, have a case number and will be sending it off to Houston to have it fixed/repaired.

 

Thanks again for your help IronFly!

IronFly

You welcome.

ronpxx

I am having the same issues that Monkman911 described, with my A1-830 tablet, namely it recently sees my network as "in range" only if it's just a few feet from the router.  For the past year, it was connecting well throughout the house.  (Other devices in the house have seen no change in wirelessly connecting to my network.)

Any suggestions as to how to fix the issue, or how to determine if it's due to some OS software upgrade or failure in the tablet's wireless adapter hardware?  

I rely on the Acer Live Updater, and notice that I am now on Android version 4.4.2 (is that "KitKat")?  I used to be on the Jelly Bean OS, I believe.  I don't know when the OS "upgrade" occurred, but it may have been recently.  Could the OS change be the cause?

All suggestions welcome.

IronFly

4.4.x is kitkat.

 

you can follow my instruction on a previous post, try also a factory reset since you don't know when you updated.

 

backup all your personal data before do it.

 

settings/backup&reset - factory data reset

 

if even after resetting, the wifi issue is present, can be a problem to the internal wifi antenna cable going loose.

ronpxx

Thanks for the reply.

I had already tried turning off WiFi optimization; no change.

I have just done the Factory Reset, and still recovering from that, but already clearly with no improvement to the WiFi signal.  And I notice that it is back with the 4.4.2 OS and still up to date with all the ACER system updates.

 

I suppose it could be a WiFi antenna issue, and not related to any software/OS change.  I'm past any warranty coverage, so my guess is that any diagnosing by ACER and/or wireless h/w fix would likely cost about as much as a tablet.  If any other suggestions come to mind, please let me know.  Again, thanks for trying.

billsey

Typically when it will connect when within a couple of feet of the router, but not see the wireless when moved farther away it is the antenna cables. It's a pretty easy fix, though it does mean opening it up. Just plug them back in and make sure they are fully seated.

ronpxx

Thanks for the encouragement.  Never having opened one, I don't immediately see how to proceed with opening it, but I'll check the web for info.  I'll let you know how/if things turn out.  

ronpxx

Billsey -

Thank you.  Now fixed.

I found very detailed videos on YouTube for checking/fixing the antenna connection on this tablet, and after finally getting the nerve to open the tablet, was pleasantly surprised to see my antenna cable connector simply needed to be plugged back on.  (No soldering or such needed.)

I should have realized it was a "hardware" issue, and not bothered with the restoral to original s/w (as suggested by another responder), which did not help at all and lost my substantial progress in a couple of games.

billsey

Glad I could help. Antenna connectors seem to be a trouble spot for most of the tablets. I think they get jostled around more than laptops, and they use smaller connectors.