CloudingClarity

Sony Vaio + Linksys Wireless = Connectivity Issues

Posted on 20. Nov, 2008 by Eric in Uncategorized

After returning my Acer Aspire One due to an unfixable bios error I was, once again, in the market for a new laptop. Though I have always been an advocate for HP, I decided that I should give another company the opportunity to impress me. Within a few days, I found a Sony Vaio at the local Officemax. Sony’s Vaio NS135 model is regularly $750, but I was able to pick it up for $600 on sale. It included a 2.0Ghz dual core processor, 3GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, and Vista Home Premium.

The Problem
Within minutes after bringing the new computer home, it connected it to my Linksys wireless router seemingly without a problem. Moments later, I observed that my old laptop was having connectivity issues. Every 10 seconds it would connect and disconnect to the wireless network. In hopes of troubleshooting the issue, I checked the connection status of the other computers on the network. To my dismay, they were all having the same problem…connecting and disconnecting. Meanwhile, my Sony Vaio was able to sustain continuous signal, however, the internet was very slow. The Solution
After 4 hours of trying everything I could think of, I finally determined that my router must be incompatible with my new Vaio and there was nothing that could be done to change it. In one last desperate attempt, I upgraded the firmware on my router, and voila, it worked perfectly. All the computers were able to connect and stay connected. Apparently slightly older Linksys routes are equipped with firmware that does not support Vaio computers. Thankfully, updating the firmware on a router is simple.

Here is how to Update the Firmware
1. Enter your router name and version on this site
2. Download the firmware upgrade file to your computer
3. Type in 192.168.1.1 in a web browser
4. Enter “admin” for both user and password
5. Click the “Administration” tab
6. Click the “firmware upgrade” sub-tab
7. Click the “browse” button
8. Locate the file you downloaded in step 1
9. Click the “upgrade” button

This was all I had to do and my problem was solved. Hopefully, this post will help you, should you encounter such an issue. I researched Google to see if this issue was a common problem, and very few people have written of it. For this reason, I felt that I must help out my fellow Sony Vaio users by writing this post.

Tags: connectivity, linksys firmware upgrade, linksys wireless, vaio