Hi all

I have recently been having problems with my Sony Vaio laptop in getting it to connect to a wireless network with security e.g. WEP, WPA etc.

I have eventually got it working by identifying a number of sources and between them all have worked - but Ihave never found them all put in one place as a good solution for the problems so thought I would share this with the wider Sony Vaio community.

Do you have these problems?

A Sony Vaio laptop which fails to connect into a wireless network which has security running - either WEP or WPA. The Vaio will connect in fine to a network which is not running security. When trying to connect to a WEP/WPA wireless network, it begins to acquire a network address, the wireless icon on the toolbar flicks between acquiring (yellow dot moving) to not connected (red cross X), but never connects in and then stops.

Routers affected - Belkin, Netgear
Wireless - b/g INTEL wireless card

Solution

The following solution is a basic generic description and will vary dependent on your current set up on your router:

Identify your MAC address on your wireless card - go to the wireless card properties and under the MAC address settings (generally found under General) note this down.

Check that the driver being used for the wireless card is the most up to date (the driver date will be on the properties tab) and then visit
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...nav2_download#

for the most recent driver date and download this and install it.

Next download from the Intel web site the wireless management software

Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network ConnectionÂ*Intel® PROSet/Wireless Network Connection Software [WIRELESS_TIC_131935_V10.5.2.0_XP32.EXE]

This software will replace Windows management software for the wireless connection. Download and install this software.

Now use the software to access your router. Under the router maintenance / set up screen (I am not sure what this will look like for everyones routers) go to the MAC filtering rule and type in the MAC address for your wireless card. FYI just make sure this hasnt changed on installation of the new driver!!

Make sure you have MAC filtering then enabled.

Next check that the following is set up on the router:

DHCP server is on and enabled (this will automatically assign IPs)
Also make sure the IP address pool is big and not just for one computer - your IP address pool should be from something like 198.128.2.1 (or slight variant on that - the most important bit is the last number) - to something 198.128.2.100 - this means it will assign IPs to 100 computers.

Check that the properties for the wireless card (back on the PC) are also set for DHCP.

Delete any old wireless listings on the network listing - this will have old info on WEP/WPA keys - you can delete (REMOVE) a wireless network from your list of preferred networks.

Running the INTEL software to access the wireless router should now be working fine and connect and add in the WEP/WPA key. May I suggest using WPA-PSK as it works better and is more secure.

Ok well I hope that helps some of you - apologies if it doesn't. Key thing is that Windows cant seem to manage the INTEL card correctly under security over wireless.

All the best!