Acer Aspire One ZG5 - Sudden Limited Wifi Connectivity

baxters

It's an old netbook, but worked great for years talking WPA/WPA2-PSK to various Dlink routers. Now it suddenly won't connect, but it will connect if I set the wireless to an open network w/o password. Otherwise, it will take forever to acqire an IP, and it will sometimes get one, but the browser won't work. I reloaded the Atheros drivers. No help. I reloaded the system from the recovery partition. No help. It's currently on a wired ethernet connection getting XP updated. I'm pretty sure it's not hardware. I can boot up a live Linux distro and that finds the wireless modem and makes the connection instantly. So I hoped that the system reload would work. It didn't. Signal strength is not an issue. I am testing it right next to the router.

baxters

OK. It's fixed. I read a thread by another user who had the same issue and wound up using drivers off a Toshiba laptop to fix it. http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=41478.0 I searched for atheros AR5007EG drivers and found a version 7.7.0.523 whereas Acer lists 7.6.0.224 as the most current version. Manually updated the atheros drivers. I'm connected again. By the way, searching for drivers not on the manufacturers' site is a minefield. Half the links and clicks want to sell you driver tools and other stuff. I barely trust CNET and softpedia for content and avoid everyone else. Maybe I was lucky I found the right one on softpedia.

Leho

Baxt

Do a search here for antenna problems. There might be a solution that works for you. Folks have been having loose antenna problems.

Leho

baxters

Thanks for the look, leho. Not antenna problem. I can connect the acer using WEP to a guest zone on my router. It's only when I try WPA/WPA2 that I get limited connectivity. The router does issue me an IP address under WPA, and it's in the right range of alloted numbers. Cannot ping the router though. And if I boot under Linux, that OS finds the modem and flawlessly connects under WPA2. Two different Linux OS too. Hardware works. Downloaded ATheros drivers again from Acer, but no help. I just found my old Linksys router and it will connnect to that under WPA2 and ping the router (it's not connected to my ISP). Again showing the hardware works. So it's some kind of protocol mismatch with my current router that popped up recently, as I am sure I've used this PC in the past with it, I did power cycle the router. I can't reset it. I would lose all my wireless printer/scanner settings.

baxters

OK. It's fixed. I read a thread by another user who had the same issue and wound up using drivers off a Toshiba laptop to fix it. http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=41478.0 I searched for atheros AR5007EG drivers and found a version 7.7.0.523 whereas Acer lists 7.6.0.224 as the most current version. Manually updated the atheros drivers. I'm connected again. By the way, searching for drivers not on the manufacturers' site is a minefield. Half the links and clicks want to sell you driver tools and other stuff. I barely trust CNET and softpedia for content and avoid everyone else. Maybe I was lucky I found the right one on softpedia.