Weird WPA2 bullshit and SP3 (AR9285)

(Sorry for the profanity. I'm in a bit of a mood and I feel like I need to get my point across.)

Yes, this card supports WPA2.
Yes, this is SP3. So the SP2 WPA2 patch isn't relevant, here.
Yes, I have looked around the internet, and can only find solutions for SP1/2, or irrelevant bullshit.

Literally any other OS I have tried works, except Windows XP, with my network connection. I don't maintain it and I live in a property that is shared accommodation, so it's not my business to go changing the settings on other people, nor do I really want to spend 25 quid on a wifi extender when I'm right underneath the bloody thing.

I get the "out of range" error when trying to connect. Most of the networks I can pick up, including the wifi that one of the residents actually installed for himself, come up 'Security enabled wireless network (WPA2)' so it's clear this card supports WPA2, but the one I actually want to bloody connect to, which does work under Debian - which somehow manages to run poorly on an N270 despite being well, Debian - just says... 'Security enabled wireless network'. It doesn't know that it's WPA2.

My best guess is that it's too new of a router and it's sending out some sort of 'new' WPA2 encryption only supported by Vista+ based on a different kind of crypto or something, but I could be wrong, could just be a hardware/driver level issue, but then again if every other OS supports it and all my other devices including a PS3 and even the bloody Wii support it, then it's clearly XP's problem.

Before I go bloody mental or something, is there any hope for this? Has anyone, ANYONE, had this same issue and managed to sort it out, within the past eight years or so, since it seems like I can't find anything useful about this problem?

(The driver version is the last version released which is from 2013, 10.something.)

 

if working in older mode have you tried to set in older mode ie sp2 ? and see if ok then i have old laptop that wont connect to my wifi has a mind of its own, i switched it in compatible mode now its fine,

long live xp

 

Oh, you mean mixed mode (WPA/WPA2)?

A lot of newer routers/router firmware I've seen, including whatever the BT system the place I live at uses, doesn't support mixed mode. I also would rather not pester those maintaining the router to attempt to downgrade the settings for a 20-year-old OS, they'd probably 'wtf' at me @_@

I guess some routers are just finicky with XP support and WPA2 and always have been, or it depends on the WLAN card. (At the very least, the HomeHub 5 works with the AR9285 from what I recall.)

I've ordered another PC either way (probably going to run Windows Vista SP2 x64 on that since it's a Core 2 Duo of some sort), and fingers crossed the USB WLAN it comes with will be of a different chipset - I might test it with this here netbook and see what results I get, to see if the issue is with the AR9285's driver or with Windows XP.

 

I've been using this driver for quite some time, and it's perfect for my Qualcomm WLAN card. If you run into any problems, scroll down to find older versions that might work.

 

You could probably use a USB wifi adapter - Here's the one I have on my XP SP3 PC and it connects to 802.11a,b,g,n,ac networks on the 2.4GHz & 5 GHz bands (My router is AC1900).
It comes with drivers for Windows XP SP3 & UP as well as Linux (haven't tried it in Linux).
A lot cheaper than buying a new PC.

https://www.ebay.com/p/JJINGER-W951...fi-Adapter/27033524598?iid=183230767043&rt=nc

I own 3 of these since I have some older notebooks that only have 802.11a/b. (I disabled the on-board adapter and use the USB instead.

I have tested and can confirm the adapter works perfectly with Windows XP, 7 & 10.

 

I wonder how many people actually need 802.11n/ac to take full advantage of their WiFi network. I don't think I've ever seen anything that could fully saturate 802.11g in any point of my life.

Edit: That is a bit of a lie, I used to use a NAS, but I've never used an internet connection that could saturate 802.11g.

 

That's the same driver.
Yeah, maybe it's a lack of (proper) support for a certain type of 802.11x spec on the router's end and XP drivers then.

 

If you really want a SOLID wireless connection but don't want to get a new wireless card ever... get yourself a DD-WRT compatible router. It may be an upfront cost, unless you can find a bargain.

So, with a DD-WRT router, it's basically a router with a Linux type firmware system.

One router I have running DD-WRT is the Netgear R7000 router with Kong's build.


So the premise is, wire connect your computer to the router, and use the WebGUI on the router and use the wifi of the router to wirelessly connect to the WIFI signal you're desiring to connect to.

Great thing about this, is that you can use the wireless router to connect other wired machines and effectively give them wifi.

Or you can use secondary channels to have your own wifi. Say, use the 2.4G wifi for your local devices and have the 5G channel making a wireless connection to the wifi you want to connect all your devices through.

If I ever needed to connect two segments of a network I had no way of connecting physically, I would use a wireless bridge through two DD-WRT routers.

You'd want to use a router with multiple antennae with good throughput.

Another benefit of going this route with a dd-wrt router, is you can use DD-WRT on that router for some neat services (i.e. open VPN, PPTP protocols, FTP, Samba shares, mini DLNA server, http services, et al).

 

Hmmm...building on that, you could just get a 'travel router' that is built for that exact purpose

The other idea is to use a wired router in 'wireless bridge mode' which essentially acts as a big antenna for a wired connection to your system.