Secure Wifi WPA or WPA2 doesn't work

Hi,

I have an acer TM4202WLMi laptop with a built-in INTEL(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network adapter and a Conceptronic C54BRS4 WLAN router.

Only WEP encryption is working, If I try to set up WPA(TKIP) or WPA2(AES) encryption, my laptop can't connect to the router saying "Authentication failed due to incorrect security password (key)."

I've upgraded my router's firmware to V2.0_FW_1.47, and I've downloaded the latest driver from intel: Intel(R)PROSetWirelessSoftwareVer10.5.0.0.exe

Any idea?
Thanks, Thomas

 

I had a problem with my router when trying to get it into WPA mode too. I actually lost contact with the setup page for the router once I enabled the WPA mode.

WEP seemed to setup just fine so that's what I ended up using for now.

Haven't tried connecting my laptop to it yet though.

 

once you setup wpa and save the setting you loose connection due to an encrypted connection and you dont have the key. Wire up and youll be able to reconnect to the router/wap.

 

I was actually making the changes via a hardwired PC. So I'm thinking the wireless security features wouldn't make any differences to the hardwired connection. Is that right?

I ended up resetting the router/DSL modem and upgrading the router's firmware. And the Linksys people recommended WEP for me with less security features selected.

Thanks for the reply and thoughts liquidxit2!

 

Thomas,
I just remembered reading somewhere that you need to set up the laptop and the router at the same time.

The router needs to have the physical address of your wireless NIC and the key needs to be programmed into you laptop before you hit "save changes" on the router's setup page.

I will see if I can find a link to that resource (unfortunately specifically for Linksys WRT54G but perhaps you can get something useful out of it):
http://www.infosecwriters.com/text_resources/pdf/secure_linksys_wrt54g.pdf

 

I would think that your router would only need the physical address (mac address) of your card when you are enabling that option and not with WPA.

 

Hi,

I don't loose the connection with the router because i'm wired to it by an UTP cable too, but the wireless connection is not working using WPA.

I'm using pre shared key and I type it to both the laptop & the router, so no key exchnage is needed.

I can only think that either the laptop's NIC or the router has some defects, or this kind of connection is not supported by them. (But in this case why is it possibile to select them?)

Thomas

 

Make sure you don't have CapsLock on typing the password. Some routers also require a minimum password length, or may have a maximum length. Try something that's 8-12 characters long as your WPA password, with just letters in it. Special characters can cause problems over web forms sometimes. See if you can use a channel that networks near you aren't using as well.

 

Have you downloaded the latest software from Microsoft for WPA. Follow this link http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=009d8425-ce2b-47a4-abec-274845dc9e91 if you have not done so.