Topic: Fails to Detect WiFi?

Has anyone else had a problem with their 3.5 Infocast failing to properly connect to WiFi upon bootup?  My unit works perfectly as long as it's kept plugged in, but problems occur when I restart it or unplug/plug it in.  Sometimes it automatically connects without a problem, but the majority of the time I need to power cycle a few times before it connects, or it just plain refuses.  I get an error message that seems to indicate that no WiFi point is found -and- that the WiFi card (?) won't start up.

Is this a common problem? Is there an easy fix?  I was hoping there might just be a bad internal connection.

(I'm feeling particularly stupid as I realized there was a 6 month warranty on mine, which ended last week -- for some odd reason, I thought it was 90 days.)

Re: Fails to Detect WiFi?

My Chumby 1 started having similar WiFi connectivity issues with the latest software update to the Control Panel.  I eventually discovered that after a connection failure just leaving the device turned on but not touching it for 24 hours was often sufficient to get it to connect after waiting.  I found it helpful to plug in a USB keyboard as that brings up a root shell, which I could then use to try and trouble-shoot (as long as I could read the typeface).  For some reason my AP (maybe in conjunction with the Chumby code) was taking longer to finish associating and handing out a DHCP address than the Control Panel software was wating for it.  Plugging in the keyboard let me see that it did eventually connect up properly and I could ping both inwards and out at that point, but the only way to get the Control Panel to see it was to do that 24-hour wait.

Out of curiosity what make & model is your WiFi Router?

- Andrew

Re: Fails to Detect WiFi?

My 3.5 infocast always had connection setup problem not seen on my 8" Infocast.  The 3.5  connects every time if I move the wifi card from the riser card to the USB connector on the back.  It almost never auto-connects on the riser card.

Of course taking the Infocast apart and reassembling it in a different configuration probably isn't a good solution for most folks. :-0

Re: Fails to Detect WiFi?

Well, plugging in a generic USB WiFi adapter appears to have temporarily solved the problem -- although my reception is worse now.  All I can guess is that something is bad with either the internal wifi or the connection on the internal wifi.