router won't let me connect with a wpa in place :(

hi, for the past few nights my laptop has started to drop connect at a certain time.

im not sure why but the only way to get my laptop to connect is by taking of the wpa and just using an unsecured network.

but wait for it, in the morning everything works fine, with the wpa on. why does this happen??

my router set up is quite odd, i have a 360 wired going to router. then i have a apple airport express wired going to router too. (this allows me to wirelessly stream music from laptop to hifi)

for me network i have two ssid's. first one is coming from my router, the second is coming from the apple express. i need two as all my other house mates use the first for themselves. the second is for me and my laptop to stream music to my hifi, plus as its wired to my router so i get the net off it too.

why have two ssid if you can both get the net off them then? well in theory there should be no reason why i cant have both. i dont have my hifi on all the time so i would just like to go back to the main ssid that my whole house is using.

the problem occurs when i switch of the apple express and then try to connect to my router's ssid. my laptop just keeps trying to connect but nothing happens. when i search for wireless networks its there, with full strength (which is even more annoying)

but like i said at the start to only way to connect to the main house hold ssid is to take off the wpa and it seems wait till morning until it decides that it will work.

i would really love some help with this router issue.

cheers

anyone????

Having two SSIDs means your clients will not automatically roam between the APs, they will stay locked to whichever one you join them to. They will still be part of the same network once connected of course, if the APs are connected together.

If they have the same SSID then the client should connect to whatever AP has the strongest signal. For this to work both APs need to have the same security settings.

In both cases the router and AP should be using channels at least six apart from each other to reduce interference.

If your laptop struggles to connect to the router but works fine off the Airport AP and you can confirm all the encryption settings are indeed correct then I'd suggest something as simple as a firmware upgrade for the router, and possibly a driver update on the laptop. It is quite possible it will fix the issue of WPA dropping off radomly as well.

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Jeremy

Marlborough WiFi Project

hi well touch wood i've sorted this problem out. my default frequency was set to 2.46 (or something like this) well i altered it down a few and this seem to have worked. (there might have been a conflict) where as in the past i left my laptop wireless on, and then turned off the airport express, now i turn off my wireless on my laptop first then i switch off the ape. not sure if this is doing anything but this has seemed to work, it might have been the case that when i turned off the apx the laptop was simply confused as to what to connect to.

this is all conjecture i must add, but i feel what with this new technique and the altering of the frequencies this has for now sorted this problem out.