How to force Asus Eee to recognize private wireless

August 21, 2011 4:18 AM

Please help, computer techies. Asus Eee PC wireless connection problem with Windows 7.

I've tried calling the Asus help line and searched through all the network/internet settings but no luck (also don't know a lot computer-wise). In the past I've had no trouble connecting to public wireless networks at internet cafes and the like, but private wi-fi? Never.

I'm now living in India and my housemates recently got wireless. Their 3 laptops are having no problem connecting, but when I try to connect (with the correct password for the wireless) a window pops up "WINDOWS SECURITY: Network Authentication. Please enter user credentials" then user name & password. I've tried my general username and password (nothing), tried the internet username and password (nothing) and don't know what it wants.

A friend of mine was searching online and found that others have been having the same problem, and it seems there might be some pre-set security setting in the wireless settings?? If I changed the "mode" box from "auto" to "infrastructure"?? Except I can't find the mythical 'wireless settings' tab or box or button or window.

Anything you can relate to help shed light on this problem would be most appreciated

posted by Viomeda to technology (6 answers total)

I have two Asus eee PCs of different sizes and OS (Windows and Linux) and logged onto private wifi in India with no trouble. However, I don't use Windows 7 so your problem maybe OS based rather than Asus based.
posted by infini at 4:26 AM on August 21, 2011

You can get to the wireless settings/network settings in the corner of the menu bar. Right click or double click on some of the icons there, and you should get a little closer to settings for both.

I've also found it tricky to get to the actual network settings - it's quite hidden.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 4:34 AM on August 21, 2011

You may just need to update your drivers. Try official page here and this less official one here... Search for your model of laptop/netbook and track down the specific wifi drivers you need. Download, install. Test.

If you are still having problems, or can't figure out which drivers to install, try this:

- Open start menu
- Open control panel
- open system
- press 'device manager' on left hand side
- open 'network adapters'
- there will probably be two entries here. One saying 'LAN' or 'Network' and one saying 'WIFI' or 'Wireless'
- open the 'wireless' one *
- open the 'advanced tab'
- look in the left hand column for entry labelled 'channel'

now, play with these figures. Different countries often have slightly different standards for the channels their wifi run on. I'm not sure of the specifics, but imagine Europe uses channels 2 - 12 for most hardware and india uses channels 4 - 16. If your hardware is set to channel 3 then it won't work in India but it will in Europe. Play around

If that doesn't work, then try this. Follow the instructions above again until the */ italicised entry, then do this instead:

- press the 'details' tab
- Got to 'hardware ids' in the drop down
- Copy the top most - the longest - string that appears (something like this: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4222&SUBSYS_10418086&REV_02)

Now. Use this string to search online. Try the whole thing followed by drivers in google. If this doesn't give you any results, cut off the first part of the string up to and including the & symbol and try again. e.g. if PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4222&SUBSYS_10418086&REV_02
doesn't work, try DEV_4222&SUBSYS_10418086&REV_02, if that doesn't work, try SUBSYS_10418086&REV_02

Eventually, with some detective work, you should be able to figure out your EXACT hardware and find the drivers to go with it. Sometimes, asus won't officially release a driver for their hardware - especially old systems - but the company that creates the wifi cards still makes them for other systems and issues drivers for other systems under slightly different names. Usually the hardware ID won't change and so you can get the very latest drivers everytime

Takes a bit of effort, but worth it if you fix your problems

Good luck
posted by 0bvious at 4:51 AM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

Does your eePC have some sort of Atheros NIC? I feel like I've dealt with something similar to this recently, and it seems to be related to some flavors of Atheros chipsets not being able to connect to a wireless network if security is enabled (Here is an example).

Obvious is right that a driver update seems to resolve this for most people; however a (admittedly not at all desirable) workaround would be to set your wireless network to "Open" so that anyone can connect to it. At the very least, doing this as a test would tell you if this is the issue you're dealing with.
posted by Jinkeez at 9:20 AM on August 21, 2011

I had the reverse problem (could connect privately but not to public wi-fi) in a linux Eee. I've been disappointed by Asus support often enough that I refuse to buy things from them anymore. What kind of security does your private wireless setting have and what kinds of information have your friends been required to enter? There are various ways of securing wireless connections and I know none that should require your windows username and password.
posted by Obscure Reference at 11:02 AM on August 21, 2011

Does this help?
posted by flabdablet at 5:54 PM on August 21, 2011