The model name is Acer Aspire, WiFi adapter is Qualcomm Atheros AR5BWB222. Cannot connect to any Mikrotik device but OK with any other router.
Accidentally I found out that if I disctonnect AC power, I can easily connect to the Mikrotik routers. Can I change some settings to be able to connect even when AC is on?
What do you mean by AC? What are you disconnecting, specifically? Laptop power cord?
Yes! You won’t believe, but there’s a fact. It connects only when I disconnect power adapter, e. g. only when running on battery. Then I can reconnect power wire and it remains connected.
Can you open the MikroTik wireless “registration table” and check your signal? If you could do this from another PC, you could monitor if the signal changes, when you plug in the laptop power supply. Maybe it causes interference in the laptop
I can, but it happens even when the Mikrotik router is lying on the same table close to the notebook.
“Interference” at the moment when I plug it in or out? No, I’m not trying to connect at the same moment I connect AC cable.
It cannot connect when it is on AC power, only key exchange or something like that. I suppose that it can be because of different ACPI modes, due to how BIOS manages WiFi adapter modes. But it ONLY happens with ANY Mikrotik router. I tried short and long preambles both on the laptop and the router, various wireless ranges, nothing worked until I put the power cord off.
It is pretty reproducible and not an accident.
Does it disconnect, if you unplug the power cord while it was connected?
No. It works well when I plug it in, out, I’am able to do that each 2 seconds and the audio stream (online TV) does not disrupt.
But when does it not work?
It cannot associate to the Mikrotik WiFi when on AC power. When on battery, it can associate.
After the association it works irrelative of being connected to AC or not.
ok, very interesting. please enable the “wireless,debug” log (add new logging entry with the mentioned task) and see what the debug says when you try to connect.
I still believe this is some power issue that causes your laptop wifi card to malfunction (it draws more power when searching and connecting), but of course it could be something else.
It worked until I rebooted my laptop.
Then it could not connect again. I disconnected power and then managed to connect after third attempt.
Here’s the log:
So the error is: “unicast key exchange timeout”.
Two suggestions now:
check if your laptop has some power saving settings. maybe it adjusts wifi settings when laptop has battery vs has power cord
remove the WPA profile in the router, try to connect without password
Tried all settings in device manager with wireless adapter. Does not help.
Does not connect to an open MT wifi network too.
what log do you have, when no WPA?
It seems nothing.
It would indicate, that the laptop didn’t even try to connect.
That’s not true. I do understand that the laptop (or, more specifically, it’s WiFi adapter) is bad. But this appears to be only with Mikrotik routers. Why? There’s definitely a problem in between.
If the debug log doesn’t show anything, I can’t see another reason. Are you sure there is nothing in the log?