Find Wireless Network Problems

[Cclyde]

Hi,

I'm having some serious trouble with Access Connections and had no luck with searching this forum, the Lenovo support page or the internet.

We have WLAN on our uni campus and with my previous laptop, I had no problem accessing it. With my new Thinkpad, I have been able to connect to every wireless network I know - except the one at uni.

In the Fn+F5 menu, selecting "Find Wireless Networks" gives me the usual list of wireless networks, with the added twist of a couple of networks (presumable the uni's access points) being designated as [Unknown]. See this picture.

The computer simply refuses to connect to these "unknown" APs.

Am I overlooking something important? Should I throw out AC and reinstall it from scratch? Or is this a known problem and I just haven't dug deep enough in the Lenovo knowledgebase?

[gator]

That is strange - I use my campus WiFi all the time, and it gets listed correctly.

How does your authentication work? I guess you login with your campus-wide id/password into the wifi - atleast thats what we do here. (Once connected to a wifi, if I open the browser i get an authentication page where I log in). Did you try physically configuring your campus wifi and storing it in a profile?

[christopher_wolf]

Do you know the standardized network name the campus WiFi routers have and what their authentication system is?

There are some where you have to have either the key set or a certificate before you can even get to an auth page.

[Cclyde]

Yeah, it's exactly like that, when you are connected and open your browser you get a login form where you enter your student ID and password - but obviously I don't even get that far since I can't connect.

I've tried everything from disabling AC and using Windows' wireless controls to trying to force it on AC by manually entering all the details. Absolutely no avail.

[Cclyde]

There are some where you have to have either the key set or a certificate before you can even get to an auth page.

With my previous laptops (and everybody else's for that matter), it works out of the box, without any certs or key sets

[redburgundy]

Can you find out the SSID of the network and create a profile manually?

[Scratch]

Is your firewall blocking your connection?

With ZoneAlarmPro I have had to create a trust for the subnet or network that I am attempting to connect to before the AC link function can proceed.

[Cclyde]

Can you find out the SSID of the network and create a profile manually?

One of the first things I tried

Is your firewall blocking your connection?

With ZoneAlarmPro I have had to create a trust for the subnet or network that I am attempting to connect to before the AC link function can proceed.

McAfee Desktop FW doesn't have network policies - and even if, I'd probably have troubles with other networks too...

[christopher_wolf]

Can it connect simply through the Windows Wireless handler? That could help narrow down the problem as to whether it is with AC or with the wireless configuration as a whole.

[Scratch]

If McAfee has no net pol's then it's obviously not your issue. I have found with my use of ZA firewall that it will "lose" the trust for my home network on occasion which prevents my connection, but it's never lost my office "trust".

Odd, but not unusual in my experience.

[rvacha]

Could it be that your WiFi adapter is set for "b only" or "g only" or something to that effect? Or perhaps it is set up not to connect if the baud rate is too low? Perhaps you can compare your adapter settings against someone who has no problem?