I have the nec versa litepad and a linksys router at home. I can barely get to the internet, 95% I don't get there. I get a connection to the network, the signal strength is good, I quadruple check my wpa key and it's all in order but i can't surf on the internet. Does anyone have any suggestions or where to start? it's been like this for several months.

While this will probably end up being more of a WiFi solution than a tablet question, I will give it my best shot.

First, we/I need some clarification:

1. Do other PC’s (or Macs) share the wireless portion of the Linksys router for connectivity? Are they still making and maintaining a connection OK?

2. Did the Litepad ever connect well to this setup, or did it quit working right recently (6 -12 weeks)?

The answers to these questions determine the next step. Here are my first thoughts:

If other computers are using the router as expected, that just eliminates the cable/DSL connection and the router itself. If not that issue remains unknown.

If the Litepad has never worked properly, it is either, drivers, security, or configuration.

A. Drivers: The drivers that come on the CD with your hardware are notorious for being crap. As fast as hardware is changing, those drivers were most likely published and sent to the CD stamping before there was a card in existence for them to be tested on. Go to the manufacturers site and get the most current (non-beta) drivers available. Read all the install materials and get them installed properly.

B. Security: According to your post you are using the WPA/802.1x/dynamic security. My personal opinion is that this mode does not provide enough security for the headache it will certainly provide. I run either an open network, or one using WEP 128bit for security. For test purposes Disable all security in the router and the Litepad if you connect properly it is/was a security problem and I encourage you to re configure everything properly. See the next tidbit for some advice.

C. Configuration: Almost certainly, your 802.11a/b/g card came with a CD of software that included the drivers as well as an application known as the “configuration manager”. This is the friendly program that is supposed help you out by interfacing with the WinXP wireless control panel applet, it also probably allows you to see some representation of signal strength, and easily switch between different wireless networks. This effectively gives you two interfaces to the same hardware installed on the PC. The problem is that when you installed this program, it “stole” control of the hardware from XP. XP does not like this! On more than one occasion I have seen XP revert control of the WiFi hardware to the XP control panel applet with no user intervention. By the time this had happened several times we just gave up and stopped using the control manager and used XP’s applet.

It is possible that while you have quadruple checked your WPA key in the control manager, but winXP is ignoring your input, using the applet for it’s config data, This scenario can also happen in reverse. Make sure that your settings are in both locations, due to the dynamic nature and the re-polling schedule of the router, this could account for your occasional connectivity.

If the Litepad did connect for some time then quit within the last month or so, did it quit at or about the time that you upgraded to XP service pack 2? Would you know, if you have automatic updates set for full automatic, you might not. It has been found that service pack 2 run in conjunction with some Spy ware protection programs actually breaks the PC’s ability to use the network. These Spyware detection programs watch for suspicious changes to the system registry, then undo them. It seems that many of these programs detect some of the SP2 changes as malicious, and then tries to undo them. One known one is to a part of the windows networking component WinSock.

I was giving phone support to my brother-in-law and found this application, I downloaded it and got it too him. It fixed both of his computers that he had recently upgraded to SP2. I offer no guarantee:

http://www.thesprocket.net/bigweb/FU...nsockxpFix.exe

Well good luck, if you want to try some of these solutions and record any results, as well as answer the few questions, I’ll check back in the morning.

1. Do other PC’s (or Macs) share the wireless portion of the Linksys router for connectivity? Are they still making and maintaining a connection OK?

Everyone else makes wireless and wired connections okay.

2. Did the Litepad ever connect well to this setup, or did it quit working right recently (6 -12 weeks)?

At first the problem was intermittent and then I just couldn't get on at all.

The answers to these questions determine the next step. Here are my first thoughts:

If other computers are using the router as expected, that just eliminates the cable/DSL connection and the router itself. If not that issue remains unknown.

If the Litepad has never worked properly, it is either, drivers, security, or configuration.

A. Drivers: The drivers that come on the CD with your hardware are notorious for being crap. As fast as hardware is changing, those drivers were most likely published and sent to the CD stamping before there was a card in existence for them to be tested on. Go to the manufacturers site and get the most current (non-beta) drivers available. Read all the install materials and get them installed properly.

I have the most updated drivers, the wireless card is built into the tablet.

B. Security: According to your post you are using the WPA/802.1x/dynamic security. My personal opinion is that this mode does not provide enough security for the headache it will certainly provide. I run either an open network, or one using WEP 128bit for security. For test purposes Disable all security in the router and the Litepad if you connect properly it is/was a security problem and I encourage you to re configure everything properly. See the next tidbit for some advice.

I'll try this later and report what happens.

C. Configuration: Almost certainly, your 802.11a/b/g card came with a CD of software that included the drivers as well as an application known as the “configuration manager”. This is the friendly program that is supposed help you out by interfacing with the WinXP wireless control panel applet, it also probably allows you to see some representation of signal strength, and easily switch between different wireless networks. This effectively gives you two interfaces to the same hardware installed on the PC. The problem is that when you installed this program, it “stole” control of the hardware from XP. XP does not like this! On more than one occasion I have seen XP revert control of the WiFi hardware to the XP control panel applet with no user intervention. By the time this had happened several times we just gave up and stopped using the control manager and used XP’s applet.

I had problems using the config manager that came with the tablet as well, it was basically the same issue.

I upgraded to SP2 right out of the box, so I wouldn't know if that was the cause, I'll try the app you posted a link to and see if that helps.

I'll get back to you, thanks for everything.

the first thing I tried was to disable 64bit wep, and it made the connection and I could get on. so I said to myself "that's funny" and then I enabled wep again and it still worked, go figure. then a few days later, today, it stopped working again.

My router is a befw11s4 802.11b but the network card is 802.11b/g. could my router have difficulties serving pc's with cards that have both modes? because I have another wireless card that's B only and it doesn't have problems.

I'm going to put the wep to 128 to see if there are improvements. any other suggestions are appreciated.

okay, if I turn off the wireless radio via the hardware button and turn it on again I can't connect to the net even though it says it's connected to the wireless network, until, I reset the router and then I can get on. Any ideas?

Hi,
I'm not sure if you're still suffering from this problem, but I had exactly the same problem with my Litepad, so I'm guessing the source of the problem is the same, too.
What I did was basically update the driver and the connection manager application to a newer version. Unfortunately, the NEC USA is quite bad in this request, with no driver or software updates available.
Fortunate for me, NEC Japan does regularly update their drivers and have good Q&A. Once I uninstalled the original connection manager software and installed the new application driver package, everything worked like a charm, with no hint of my old problems. Using the Windows XP default connaction manager with the newer driver, the connection is still flaky.
You can download the file here:
http://121ware.com/support/download/005/0412wlanal.exe
Everything is in Japanese, but since you've already used the english version, it shouldn't be too hard to figure everything out.
Good luck!

thanks for that link! Right now things are working okay, but I suspect it to mess up and when it does I'll try that. Thanks again!