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[mzungundege]

Help needed in Zanzibar!
We have an Acer One and an XO in front of us.
The Acer connects to a private WiFi immediately  as soon as the '9876543210' encryption key WSK is entered.
The XO connects via the round symbol and reads the wifi name correctly. It asks for the key but keeps on "connecting" as soon as the key is entered.And never actually makes a connection.
I know this is a known problem and we've tried various remedies.
Could anyone be kind enough to advise us what to do?
Kids here are very dissapointed.
Thanks

[GregYohn]

I am sorry for your problem and I can not help you at this time, since I am ignorant on your need.

It does show that when people do make installations, they should be done back home away from the final installation. I learned to use solar panels here before taking them overseas. If I needed more help, I could get both information and supplies before leaving. It also prevents me from looking stupid, like when I attached my 15 W solar panel directly to my windup radio. POOF! The sun came out and I killed the radio, but no one saw me make my mistake before I taught others the wrong way!

Here is a guess to help you with your problem. Try using another type of key when using the password.

[mavrothal]

mzungundege
offer some more info.
Is that WEP or WPA encrypted wifi? XO is doing better on WEP.
What model is your wifi router? Look for a partial list of tested routers here http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Wireless_access_point_compatibility
What version of the os are you using? If is os767 or newer, trying clearing the network history from the control panel.
Finally make sure that when you enter your password you use the correct version, ie passphrase, ASCII or hex.

[mzungundege]

Finally make sure that when you enter your password you use the correct version, ie passphrase, ASCII or hex.
[/quote]

Thanks for the gen. It's a WPA, DLINK Airplus 2.5 Ghz. Please could you explain how to do the above, for a non-geek.

[Dinky]

Would add these as starting points before mavrothal's suggestions:

Wifi toubleshooting in Network section of XO manual.
http://laptop.org/8.2.0/manual/ 
 
Details of Wifi:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Wifi_connectivity

[CanadaDry]

If you are running an older build, i.e. 650, this will not connect to WPA.  (And there are still a lot of XO's using 650)  Try using WEP or updating your os.  OS 767 or newer works OK on WPA.

[BoBraxton]

We have G1G1, originally six, of which I still have three. I just updated these plus a couple of newer (eBay) XO systems to the latest. Out of five, four connect fine to WPA2-personal (Apple) but the fifth one fails, same update. We took to Kenya almost two years ago, July 2008, and just before we left flashed 703
Now we are up to 8.0something and like the new Activities version. I just wanted to comment on four working, one having WiFi connect problem(s). I tried that one upstairs and main level of residence, no help.

[mzungundege]

Thanks for the suggestions. The XO finally connected and allowed for some limited Web Browsing but the connection remains problematic, intermittent and painfully slow. For the kids, more bruising than browsing, quite frankly, compared to the Acer One with Windows. The two computers cost us the same and I remain an XO believer, but, for internet connectivity, the Acer wins hands down.

[mavrothal]

The XO finally connected and allowed for some limited Web Browsing but the connection remains problematic, intermittent and painfully slow.

Is that the connection or the page display (browser rendering) that is slow. If you issue in terminal

Code:

wget http://the.address.you.are.browsing.com/

does it finishes the download of the pages fast?

For the kids, more bruising than browsing, quite frankly, compared to the Acer One with Windows. The two computers cost us the same and I remain an XO believer, but, for internet connectivity, the Acer wins hands down.

Acer one has 10x the XO computing power (and 5x the power consumption). Add to that the security-imposed inefficiency of Browse.activity and there is no doubt you are right.
However you may want to try a Linux distro for your Acer one (for security) and run Sugar on top of it. Or simply try Sugar-on-a Stick.