Monday 31 December 2012

Microsoft Surface RT: WiFi Connection Error/Won’t Connect

Both of our home based Microsoft Surface RT units recently became unable to connect to any wireless connection.

It seems that the recent December updates that were supposed to _fix_ WiFi connectivity issues on the Surface RT actually broke ours that had nary a problem before.

Our home wireless setup is three Cisco WAP4410N APs set up with the same SSID and three separate channels. All APs have WPA2-Personal AES encrypted keys and all three radio bands B/G/N enabled.

All three APs are connected to a power supply (not using PoE).

After some searching and questions out and about in the forums we participate in the following seems to be true:

  • Wireless N is the problem.
  • Surface RT will connect on B and/or G.
  • Surface RT WiFi connector forced into G will connect.
  • WAPs switched to B/G Only will allow Surface RT to connect.

On one Surface RT uninstalling, rebooting, and then re-installing the MARVELL WiFi device seemed to get things straight.

On the other though nothing worked. We tried all manner of getting the unit to connect with no success.

So, we logged into all three AP Web consoles and switched the APs over to B/G Mode and tried to connect the Surface RT. Sure enough, the unit connected almost instantaneously.

We then switched the APs back to B/G/N Mode and rebooted the troublesome Surface RT.

To date it has stayed connected to the wireless network.

For now, we at least know what to do to get the units to cooperate again.

Hopefully whatever was broken with the last round of updates will be fixed in the next round! :P

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

1 comment:

kovu94 said...

Any news on this. Have exactly this issue with my new Surface RT and a Cisco WAP4410N. I can't connect to the N-Network, it only connects when I switch to B/G network.
Mobile Phone, Macbook and Mac mini connect without any issue to the N-network.
Very frustrating.