Vista SP1 and WPA-PSK Incompatibility - RESOLVED

[-=Vect0r=-]

Have had weeks of intermittent or non-existent connections and tried every thing I could think of to resolve the intermittent wireless connectivity leading to long loading times for pages ending in 'Connection timed out'

I tried:

-Latest FW for router (F5D8230 Belkin Pre N)
-Different channels (1, 6, 11)
-QoS on/off
-Re-seating PCI adapter
-reinstalling NIC drivers

....before I realised I had no problems connecting under XP on lappy!

This made me realise that the router and signal was not an issue, but a Vista issue.

Some hours of googling later i stumbled across this and this.

It transpires that WPA is incompatible with Vista at this stage. M$ do have a Hotfix somewhere, but from memory that was to be incorporated into SP1, but doesn't appear to have worked for me.

SOLUTION: I am having to revert to the rather pap WEP connection to resolve the issue. Apart from the poo security I do now have a rock solid connection! Ironically WPA2 does work on XP lappy and Vista but is not supported by my desktop PCI adapter

This strikes me as a major issue and I am sure others must be suffering the same issue and hopefully this may help those in a similar situation avoid many weeks of wireless woes like me

 

[chewyuk]

I had this with my mates laptop that I was configuring for him. I spent hours trying to get it to connect to his wireless network with no luck. My laptop (on Windows xp) connected first time.

In the end I had to use wep and left it at that. On the flip side, I was sorting out my brother's laptop over the weekend and was able to connect using WPA first time!

I have heard that Vista Sp1 is supposed to address this but I haven't been able to test this but it could be an option for you.

 

[-=Vect0r=-]

I am running SP1 and the problem still existed. It may be my lack of networking knowledge but I think the problem is bigger than me judging by the number of other posts made on the M$ Tech net with the same problem.

 

[Curiosityx]

Are you sure it's WPA and not the encryption you are using on the access point? Some older wireless chipsets dont support standards such as AES and need to fallback to TKIP due the processing required in hardware.

Dont get me wrong i havent encountered this problem but worth checking.

More notably this point from the Microsoft site

You use Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) together with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption to access wireless networks.

 

[-=Vect0r=-]

I am using the matching NIC card from Belkin (F5D8010) which allegedly complements the router so I would have thought the chipset would support both AES and TKIP, both of which I tried to no avail by the way...

 

[hybrid]

I've seen this problem a few times with Vista and netgear routers.

Dropping it to WPA instead of WPA2-PSK usually works. If all else fails, as you say, use WEP until they get something sorted.

 

[SheppeyRed]

I have had similar issues with this.

I have the F5D8010 in the PCI adaptor on my 2nd desktop. My internet connection on this was rock solid until I updated to Vista SP1.

Since then I cannot access the internet on this PC. The wireless card gets stuck on "acquiring network address" part when trying to connect to my wireless network.

I contacted Belkin and the gist of their advice was to wait until an updated driver was released for this product but the last driver released was in 2007.

Let's hope a new driver is soon to be forthcoming.