Wireless adapter connection problems

[PDLK]

I have a Compaq laptop using an Atheros AR5007 802-11b/g WiFi adapter. My new Five Spot MiFi device will not connect. I have no problem connecting via USB. I have never had connection problems to any oter WiFi. Any help is appreciated.

[moates]

I have provided some steps below that may be helpful.

Step 1 – Try completing a soft reset on the device. I have provided the instructions in a article below:

Power off the device and remove the battery.
http://support.vzw.com/clc/devices/knowledge_base.html?id=36417

Step 2 – Reset/Reboot the Five Spot device. I have provided the instructions in a article below:

http://support.vzw.com/clc/devices/knowledge_base.html?id=36433

Step 3 – Try resetting the Wifi adapter and restarting the computer.

Step 4 – Check the signal strength and relocate the device (something in the immediate location may be interfering with the device). I have provided the instruction in an article below on determining the signal strength of the device.

http://support.vzw.com/clc/devices/knowledge_base.html?id=36418

Please note: the Five Spot does not support wireless N.

[lckcmk]

I have tried this several times and a couple of times with Verizon techs assisting me and it DOES NOT WORK!!  I'm referring to the post from the Verizon Tech referring you to several articles that are supposed to help....

[jlenelms]

Where did the info. come from that says not compatible with wireless N...I have asked and asked Verizon Reps. and called in to troubleshoot and no one could tell me this!  I specifically asked does it matter if G or N and have been told no problem....This is frustrating when I go spend $50-ish to try and fix a computer problem when it was all in the restrictions of the device that no one can tell me!

Originally, I gave up getting wireless for my other two computers and have only been using one with the usb connection.  Now I am trying to tackle again and I find this. 

[jwag68]

Did you get yours to work?  I just got a fivespot yesterday and have the same problem - I can connect to the internet if the fivespot is connected to my laptop via USB, but not if it's wireless.  I tried soft reset, hard reset, all the above, and nothing helped.

[PDLK]

Only by using an USB WiFi adapter. I had to have one anyway in order to connect with my desktop PC

I'm planning to upgrade my laptop to Windows 7 to hopefully fix the problem.

[Markerhead]

Did you guys get your Five Spot to connect?  Mine worked fine out of the box and now it will not connect wirelessly.  The link to the reboot/reset did not work, so I have not tried that, but everything else I have.  How do you reboot/reset?  It appears that I cannot get an IP address assigned.

[gmanmdg]

Do you get a password mismatch error, Im using windows 7 and im getting that error, i can connect via usb fine. I know the code is correct because i can connect via my mac but as soon as i go to windows 7 no luck.

[ARHillbilly]

I just got a Fivespot and had the same issue on all 3 of my computers. Bestbuy Geek Squad loaded a patch on one laptop and now it connects, but my PC and other laptop won't. They say it is a "known problem" but I'm a bit annoyed to have to carry all 3 computers into the store, wonder why Verizon hasn't posted a patch for this yet?!!

[ARHillbilly]

OK, I am told the patch was actually for the activation software on the fivespot and really had nothing to do with the laptop. Both my laptops recognise and connect wirelessly as they should. My PC still has issues. Sometimes, I have to disconnect and reconnect repeatedly (using the VZaccess Manager) before I am actually online. However, as long as I'm patient, it eventually WILL connect wirelessly.

[chamberlin]

Just got a five spot and the unit sporadically connected via wifi twice on two different computers, but now I cannot get those, or any other computer, phone, laptop, netbook to find the five spot on wifi. I can power off, power on via USB (per instructions) and get great service while USB tethered. But the whole point of the five spot is for a portable wifi point of access, and that is just not working. I am taking the device back to the retailer to see if they have had other customers with problems. I have hard-reset the device and read the pdf maual for proper use (wifi vs. USB) so I am pretty sure that there is a hardware problem... all 4 green lights, but no wifi five spot found on multiple (5) different devices sounds like a problem to me.

[Cheeso]

Some input on this problem, but no real solutions.

My brother, non-geek, just got the fivespot. 

He could connect to the internet, with the Fivespot connected to his HP G60-244DX laptop, running Vista Home Basic (Vista SP2), but could not connect via WiFi.  He asked me to look at it.

I have a Windows7 laptop, and I could connect easily.  I looked at his Vista setup, and it appeared that DHCP was working fine, and he got a valid IP address, a valid gateway address.  All his TCPIP settings seemed fine. Still, he could not connect through WiFi. 

In an effort to troubleshoot and diagnose the situation, I reset the FiveSpot to "No Authentication" from its default of WPA-TKIP.  I was able to do this using the web administrative interface on the fivespot, accessible through http://192.168.0.1/ .  Turning off authentication is definitely not the recommended way to go, because it allows anyone within range to connect to your hotspot.  BUT, just for troubleshooting purposes, I configured it that way.  and ... PRESTO!   The Vista laptop was able to connect, no problem.

So, my conclusion is, there's some sort of bad interaction between authenticated access on Vista, and the FiveSpot.  When I used authenticated access from Windows 7, no problem.  when I used open authentication (no authentication) from either Windows Vista or Windows 7 to the FiveSpot, no problem.  The only problem I got was connecting a Windows Vista SP2 machine via WPA-TKIP authentication to the FiveSpot.

This sounds like a real problem; should be fixed or truly diagnosed by Verizon and Microsoft.

----

Some additional info:  The VZAccess Manager is completely unnecessary software. Windows Vista and Windows 7 include wireless network management software; you don't need another one.  If you have an HP laptop, another useless piece of software is the HP Wireless Assistant.  Both the Verizon thing and the HP thing try to duplicate a function that is already in Windows, and this duplication is (needless to say!) completely unnecessary.   so I advise you #1, don't install either of these things, and #2, uninstall them if they are installed on your Windows computer.   You don't need them.

Even so, the VZAccess Manager is probably not the cause of these connection problems.

Good luck everyone. I hope this little bit of information helps someone along.

[Cheeso]

A quick update. 

I searched around and found some suggestions to update the drivers for the Wireless network adapter on the PC.  Now for the Vista laptop I mentioned previously, it was an Atheros AR5007 wireless adapter, and the latest driver HP (the computer OEM) had for that adapter was at version 7.7.0.199, from December 2008.  These were more recent than the drivers installed in the Vista laptop.  So I updated from the original driver to the HP-supplied one.

Nothing changed, as far as ability to connect from the Vista laptop to the Verizon FiveSpot.

Then I found some other suggestions that the OEM-blessed drivers may be very much out of date. So I went to the manufacturer of the wireless adapter, in my case, Atheros.  I downloaded and installed drivers v9.1.0.328, installed them, and

bada bing... now I Can connect via WPA-TKIP from the HP/Vista laptop to the Verizon FiveSpot.

So. . .

My advice to you all is to update your wireless adapter to the latest and greatest version.

If you don't know how to do this, get a geek to do it for you.

Good luck all.

[apriljellybean]

I had the same issue and was on my 3rd computer because they thought it was the computer. It would connect fine when tethered but not wirelessly. It would recognize the fivespot and I would type in password and it would say security key mismatch. I finally got someone at Verizon to stick with me and not just pass me along (I was sent back and forth between Verizon, Best Buy, and Toshiba for 3 days). Everyone knew there was a problem but no one knew how to fix it. This fix worked for me, hopefully it will work for you.

Go to Start Menu

Click on Control Panel

Click on Hardware and Sounds

click on Device Manager

Click the arrow next to Network Adaptors

Right click on the wireless lan (mine was Realtek)

Click update driver software.

That should be it. I hope that is your same problem.

[abauman]

I know this sounds almost to simple ... but I was having the same issue with my Windows 7 laptop trying to connect via WiFi. The following resolved my issue:

My WiFi adapter was retaining the last IP Address it had obtained ... in my case my home network.

Go to a command prompt and do an ipconfig -release followed by ipconfig-renew.

It pulls an address from the MiFi from the DHCP range and works perfectly.

[gbarr]

Could you please elaborate on this statement? I have spent hours on the phone with Verizon and still have no wifi connection with the 2 vista laptops, but successfully connected the xp laptop. But now I'm curious about this statement from you as well. If I don't need the 5 spot I would love to return it within the 30 days for sure!

Some additional info:  The VZAccess Manager is completely unnecessary software. Windows Vista and Windows 7 include wireless network management software; you don't need another one.  If you have an HP laptop, another useless piece of software is the HP Wireless Assistant.  Both the Verizon thing and the HP thing try to duplicate a function that is already in Windows, and this duplication is (needless to say!) completely unnecessary.   so I advise you #1, don't install either of these things, and #2, uninstall them if they are installed on your Windows computer.   You don't need them.

Would appreciate additional info. Thanks

[mygreenandblue]

i have the same issue i bought a fivespot device it works fine while is connected on usb cable but it wont connect wireless, i have read a lot of comments and done some research and the device is not working on pc wirless, Verizon needs to do something about and stop deceiving people

[monttla]

This has been frustrating - fivespot works on USB, won't connect on wi-fi.  Here is what I finally did and worked perfectly - update the driver for your wireless adapter (Network Connection,  view network connections, LAN wireless connection tells you name of wireless adapter).  

Verizon should definitely know this and provide the answer, rather than the usual answer that is totally unresponsive to the problem - it's not about resetting fivespot, it's about updating your wi-fi adapter.