Surface RT wifi issues

[theta orionis]

Greetings all and hope your new year is going well.

Have a question for any Surface RT owners. Saw this tablet and absolutely loved it but I'm reading about connectivity issues with wifi (specifically showing "limited access" when on a home network.) It seems to be affecting those with dual band, i.e. 2.4gh/5ghz setups

Anyone out there experiencing any issues like this? I'd appreciate the input as I'm smitten with the device but would like to know what I'm getting in to.

Thanks!:wink:

 

[CoopII]

Yes I am new to the scene with my RT but I have been having this issue when connected to my 5hz connection it will after a period of time say limited access so I connect to the 2.4GHZ to fix the issue then after a while I notice its back on 5GHz and is fine till it does it again. Not a constant problem but at least once a day I notice this.

CoopII

 

[theta orionis]

Seems to be a lot of traffic about this on answers.microsoft.com (sorry Mods probably should've read posting etiquette before doing that:sweaty

Found this snippet from a post there:

"The Surface uses a dual-band WiFi adapter. Set the password, maximum data rates, and encryption on both of your router bands to the same values for both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands to avoid "limited" availability of your WiFi. Once you have done that forget the network and reconnect with the new password".

I'm committed to Windows 8 and the Surface RT...hope this all works out 'cause I want one badly!

 

[jhoff80]

I have the issue as well.

I ended up using a registry hack to limit the Surface to 802.11g speeds (which makes the connection 100% stable) until there's an update that officially fixes the connectivity problems.

If you still have problems apply the following registry changes:
Open Desktop -> Search -> regedit
Open regedit. Select menu Edit -> Find...
Enter "AutoUse40Mhz" -> do search.
There are 2 such entries in registry. We need to change one, located under
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\" branch.
- Set "AutoUse40Mhz" to "0" (it has value "1" by default)(This limits the channel bandwidth to use 20MHz, this reduce the speed and it's the recommended setting when you are experiencing issues with n connectivity)
- Set "Band" to "4" (it has value "6" by default)(for what I understand this change may force some devices to connect g)(I would recommend to apply the first registry change, reboot and see what happens before applying this other change).

wifi issues - Microsoft Community

 

[crystal_planet]

I have a dual band (Netgear WNDR 3700) and have never run into the problems mentioned. Both my bands are enabled but have different names and I'm running dd-wrt firmware if that makes a difference.

 

[theta orionis]

I have the issue as well.

I ended up using a registry hack to limit the Surface to 802.11g speeds (which makes the connection 100% stable) until there's an update that officially fixes the connectivity problems.


wifi issues - Microsoft Community

Any noticeable performance difference with the Surface running 802.11g? I played around with one at a Best Buy and noticed it was connected to a print server and seemed to doing fine.

 

[jhoff80]

Any noticeable performance difference with the Surface running 802.11g? I played around with one at a Best Buy and noticed it was connected to a print server and seemed to doing fine.

It's really only noticeable when I'm doing file transfers or opening files that are located on my home network.

 

[theta orionis]

It's really only noticeable when I'm doing file transfers or opening files that are located on my home network.

I think I can live with the registry hack and the g connectivity until they update this. Surface is just about the nicest Tablet out there and if they can get this right it'd be a homerun.

 

[11B1P]

I just put an new dual-band router on my network yesterday. I didn't have time to really use my Surface before getting ready for work. I did go into the settings and connect to the new router. It was working fine at that point. I should have a little bit more time this afternoon when I get up to use it some. I'll be looking for any issues.