Wireless Access

Hello there is an issue at our facility where any place new laptops have been deployed there are wireless connection issues. These laptops are newer dell latitude units, late 2013/early 2014 models. It seems to be that the laptops randomly drop connection to the AP and the wifi switch has to be flipped off then on again to regain connection.  Also at times the laptops do not connect to wifi during their startup process so when a domain user goes to sign in it states there are no logon servers available.  We only have issues with these newer laptops and were possibly thinking it could be a compatibility issue with our older AP105 units. On the wifi log theres also a warning that states "Security mismatch with 11n.  11n is not in operation."

How are your networks configured? (Encryption/authentication methods)

Also, are the wireless drivers on the laptops up to date?

The driver on the laptops is the driver they came with out of the box.  It is a year old driver compared to what dell has available for them models now.  As for the network setup we are using all AP105 units but only have issues where these new laptops are stationed.

 

Current version is 6.4.0.2

Static WEP 64 Bit Key

Band is all

Timeout is 1000 Secs

Max client is 255

Our broadcast/multicast settings are disabled

 

There is no authentication server setup

We also go through a bluecoat proxy unit here.

 

I do not know if I have provided any information that could help out much but if you need any specifics let me know.  Thank you!

You should try to update one of your laptops with the latest drivers.

 

Also, you should really consider moving to WPA2, You are running at a/g speeds when using WEP.

I see, that I was not aware of.  I suppose that's why in the Aruba interface all the units connected to the network show A and G only.  Would moving to WPA2 be as simple as changing the setting to WPA2 in the Aruba interface and setting a passphrase?  Then reconnecting all units to the wireless netowork?  Thank you much for the notice!

Yes, just be sure that all of your clients support WPA2. Some legacy devices only support WEP. If you are only supporting laptops, smartdevices, etc, you should be fine.

Yea we have only modern devices with the oldest being probably about 6 years old such as some of our iPods and a few netbooks running Windows 7.  Now if I enter the same passphrase as we currently use for WEP will the laptops automatically be able to connect? Considering there are proabaly about 200 wireless devices it could take some time running to each one.

You could yes, but you may want to use something a little more user friendly (passphrase vs random hex string).

Hi!

 

I doubt this switch will be automatic since security cached on the clients won´t match anymore (WEP vs WPA2-PSK). I´d probably create a new SSID wth WPA2-PSK and reach out to your users with information to switch to the new one. When most/all have moved you remove the old SSID.

Yes you will need to touch every device (which I think you said in your second post).