iPad 2

[Bill]

A friend of mine's new iPad 2 arrived at his house today. He unpacked it, tried to connect to his wifi and rang me. Many hours ago.

I've logged in remotely to his machine and checked the router settings all seem OK. It's a Netgear router on Virgin cable with wpa wireless security set.

Another friend of his called round to see him with her iPhone and iPad1. The iPhone seemed to connect immediately, the iPad1 didn't.

After a long struggle without changing anything, the 2 iPads appeared with IP addresses on his router and sort of worked, but had difficulty connecting to many things in a meaningful way.

Google finds many, many complaints about iPad 2's and wifi. I've read through their support docs on the net, but they are all pretty basic. For a long time the iPad saw the router by name (and didn't see any other routers), but wouldn't accept the correct password. This seems to be a common complaint. We tried doing it automatically and setting up WPA manually as the security protocol.

I'm going to have to go over there taking inSSIDer in a few days to check that his router isn't on the same wifi channel as a neighbour etc., but wondered if anyone here had any insight. The ipad says it supports a,b,g and n networking, whereas his router is only b & g but some of the complaints suggest switching to g only.

He has got over the mains networking as well, which he needs for various systems in his big thick-walled old house. Is this likely to interfere with his wifi?

He will visit the nearest Apple store tomorrow. I've advised him to be wary of being sold anything more.

So far, from a distance, I'm unimpressed. Can anyone throw any light into my darkness.

[Vortex10]

The IPAD will not be the problem.

How old is the router? Update the firmware to the latest available. there's a high probability this will sort everything.

If the router is so old that the latest firmware is still 5 years old it may still be unreliable so NEXT try the ipad on somebody elses newer router, just to satisfy yourself it works.......then buy a new router.

The alternative is to keep the router and pick up a new Wireless Access Point....benefit being (so long as you can get a wired connection back to the router) you can optimally locate it in the house AND get wireless n, long range etc. I like the Draytek AP-700

and use one of these instead of my 7 year old Linksys router for exactly the reasons you are experiencing.

[Dave Liquorice]

Wouldn't like to bet on it, Apple don't have a particulary good track record with these i thingies. Also bear in mind that you are daring to use this i thingy with other makers kit, not Apples.

Forums full of compliants that iPad2 doesn't work reliably with a variety of access points/routers that do work with other kit without trouble points the finger rather strongly at the problem being with the iPad.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Apple do not understand RF.

Tey site their aerials in stupid places.

Precisement, mon cher.

[David WE Roberts]

One thing that used to cause me problems (but recent kit seems to sort automatically).

As well as the encryption method there is the authentication method.

IIRC you can chose "shared key" or "open". If the router and client do not match, you can have the correct password and they just won't work together.

HTH

Dave R

[Dave Liquorice]

Oh yes, there are an awful lot of variations that are generally hidden from the user that kit may try and sort out automagically. When it doesn't you don't get told what the problem is with a sensible error message it just fails to work. Trying to find the relevant settings to then tweak can be a right-mare. Web interfaces on consumer kit rarely have them and the telnet interface (if it has one) will only have rudimentary documentation that is for two versions earlier...

[John Rumm]

[snip]

You are not alone. iStuff in general seems to have difficulty with wireless kit that other manufacturers kit has no difficulty interoperating with[1]. I had to swap out a WAP at an office the other day because none of the iPhones would connect to it. The laptops etc however were fine.

[1] This may not be a "fault" of the Apple kit - they may be following the letter of the law (i.e. the protocol standards), but they certainly seem less flexible.

Turning off things you don't need can help. So if the AP supports b/g & n, but you are only using g, then disable the others. Same for speed boost technologies, jumbo frames and other tweaks.

You often find it will work unencrypted but not with WPA2. One option if the kit supports it, is to disable access to the LAN from the wifi, and restrict the bandwidth available to it. Means anyone in range can connect, but they can't see you network, or use much bandwidth.

[Bill]

Thanks for this and all the other replies so far.

From his latest email.... "This morning I went to the Apple Shop at 10.30 am and confronted a spotty faced youth. I told him of my problems. He said he'd never heard of any trouble like that. What should I do I asked him. I don't know he said. That's no good to me I said. You could see someone upstairs in the Genius Bar he said. It was then I realised that I was in the Cretin Bar."

He didn't get much further in the genius bar, but they demonstrated that it worked perfectly there.

We now seem to have established that connection improves (although he thinks it's still not right) when he turns off his mains network device. I'm wondering now whether these iPads have any RF screening round the main pcb or whether the wifi section has a really wideband front end? I've thought of taking some kitchen foil over when I go, but that might make the touchscreen a bit hard to read.

He can't really afford to cable his house to be able to remove the mains networking, so I'll try to narrow down his wifi as tightly as possible. I can take another router over to use as a separate wireless access point.

[Man at B&Q]

I *need* a WAP because my iPod Touch will not connect to the router in some rooms where the laptop works fine.

MBQ

[Dave Liquorice]

Well of course it would, they will have an Apple "Airport" AP of some sort not the AP that the customer has. I'd be tempted to take both into the shop and say "make 'em work" but Sods Law being Sods Law they will no doubt work without a hitch if you did that. Just to eliminate local conditions could the i thingy and AP point be tried elsewhere before presenting to the i shop?

The mains network shouldn't be affecting the WiFi. The WiFi is on

2.4GHz, pretty sure the mains network things are less than 1MHz.

[Ron Lowe]

No help to offer, but here at Lowe Towers, I have 3 cisco access points running WPA2-Enterprise ( with RADIUS servers and certificates ) and the iPAD1 and iPod touches / iPhones all just figure it out and request credentials and connect.

Very impressed at how it figured out all the correct settings that usually requires manual intervention in Windows for example.

No idea why it won't connect to the Netgear.

[Scott M]

I have experience of a MacBook that suddenly stopped talking to a router (Netgear IIRC) that it was regularly used with. Couldn't make it talk for love nor money.

IMO it's Apple at fault but the router will always receive the blame being cheaper and easier to replace: "Oh look, it works with the new router; the old one must have been faulty."

To be fair tho, M$ managed a similar own goal with Vista (& probably 7) which connects to, but fails to see the Internet through, a variety of modem/routers.

[Clive George]

I've used a windows laptop in quite a few places, and in all but one of them what I've had to do is switch it on, choose the right network, and enter a password. I don't think it can be any simpler than that.

(in the other place, he's got DHCP turned off, so I do need to do a manual setup there - but the same would be true for any device).

[fred]

In article , Ron Lowe writes

Are the access points covering different areas? Do the various toys connect to the strongest signal or do they have a favourite that they try to connect to irrespective of signal strength?

I have a wireless router and separate access point covering overlapping areas and although I'm not using 'i' products (just yet) I have had bother with:

1. A Blackberry which has a priority list for wifi connections trying to connect to the favourite even if it is nearly out of range and the second favourite is much closer.
2. A laptop preferring to connect to the last connected node rather than the strongest which makes it a pain when moving between home to home office.

Also, bizarrely, my Orange San Francisco (notorious for wifi fussiness) refuses to work with the zoom wireless router but is perfectly happy to connect (and obtain addresses from the zoom router) when connecting via a separate access point.

I'd be interested to hear how the iToys behave in your setup.

[Ron Lowe]

All the cisco WAPS are sending the same group of SSIDs. ( There's more than 1 wireless network: there's a 'guest' one for Internet access only )

The iPrides seem to roam betweeen them seamlessly, but it's hard to say without logging into the access points and seeing what clients are currently connected.

[fred]

In article , Ron Lowe writes

More research required my end I think into group SSIDs, I'll flag that on the to-do list.

Good to know, at least one iSomething is scheduled to be added here soon.

Thanks for the info.

[John Williamson]

That would be a neat trick, given the published data rates.

[dennis]

Win7 is sensible enough to decide that AP with the same network ID are the same network and use the best signal. Of course if they have different IDs it treats them as different networks and tries to connect to the last used one.

[Nick Leverton]

Old technology powerline networks such as are used for remote meter reading are indeed around 100 kHz, give or take a few tens, but domestic powerline stuff has to be much higher rate and can cause FM interference. High bandwidth "video ready" powerline interferes in the WLAN 2.4GHz range, as has recently been published by OFCOM (I'm trying to find a link to the FoI stuff that doesn't go via The Register, who I am boycotting).

Nick

[D.M.Chapman]

Can be a bit less slick when the user changes their password though :)

I had a linksys that appeared reluctant to work with a couple of iMacs (running leopard IIRC). After sniffing the traffic it turned out to be something wierd with timing and DHCP. Can't remember the details - the machines would connect to the router fine, but then fail to get an ip and would autoassign itself an address after 30 seconds or so.

Took it back to PCworld (it was a distress purchase on a sunday), got my money back and switched to a netgear - no more problems.

Darren