can't connect to UA Public

[jharwood]

Been trying to connect to UA Public on my Dell laptop (with a Dell 802.11 g wireless adapter, PC Card). It finds the signal, but within a second or two of making the connection it immediately drops it again. Any ideas what I could try?
thanks,
jake

[Unregistered]

What do you mean that it drops? The connection or does the UAPublic network just disappear?

If you could post your diriver version and date it would be helpful as that is usually the issue at hand.

Just to be clear on how it works best, close your browser, open your connection to UAPublic, reopen your browser to allow for the redirect to accept the terms or use.

[jharwood]

It does the "acquiring network address" bit, the little icon looks like it's connected and then almost instantaneously it disconnects. The signal from the network is fine throughout, but the computer seems to connect and then immediately drop the connection. It will keep cycling like this as long as the machine is on -- searching for network, found network, acquiring address, connected, immediately disconnected.

I'll post the driver when I can -- don't have the computer with me right now.

Thanks,

Jake

[jharwood]

The driver version is 4.10.40.11, Dell truemobile 1300 WLAN PC card, Rev. 4.6. Software: 4.10.47.3
Thanks!

[rlbailey]

The signal strength could be too low.
You might want to try deleting the Wifi profile on your wifi network/connections manager as well and then reconnecting.
You could also try registering your MAC address and then use the UA private wifi networks (with UANetID/WebAuth login).

[Unregistered]

The truemobile 1300 is a pretty old card. Unfortunately Dell looks like they stopped making drivers in 2003. Your best would be to buy a new wifi adapter, which I know money can be tight and not always a possibility.

Im not positive but what I assume is happening is that UA's wireless network is to strong and too dense for your wireless card. Lets say you are at the ILC, which has 90+ AP's, now each of those AP's sends out a SSID for UAWiFi, UAPublic, UAGuest, and a ILC-Disc. So to your PC, you see 90x4 = 360 AP's each with its own mac address and offering of service. Now granted you wont see all 90 at one time but even something like 30 or 40 AP's is enough to crash older wifi drivers. Your computer may work fine at home, but you have your wifi, and maybe a neighbor or two, vs the 30-40 here on campus.