2013 MB Air w-lan issue

[MadMarc]

Hey guys I can't get my MB Air to connect to the university's wlan.
It's the 2013 Haswell model running Windows 8.1 via Bootcamp.
At home and with the uni's public wlan I've got no issues, so it seems very weird to me why it won't work with the other network.
For some programms I need to connect to the main network to get the licence for it.
I've tried manually connecting with the exact setting that the were given on the uni's webpage.

I know that's not very much information, but it's really all I've got.

So please let me know if you something I could try or I've you've got a similar config.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[yassarikhan786]

When you open a browser do you not get redirected to a secure login page where you need to enter your university credentials?

Before accessing anything that required an internet connection we had to login through a secure portal (via any browser).

 

[MadMarc]

When you open a browser do you not get redirected to a secure login page where you need to enter your university credentials?

Before accessing anything that required an internet connection we had to login through a secure portal (via any browser).

Only for the public wlan, for the main network you have to enter the password in this sidebar where all the networks are shown like you would with a home network.
I can enter my password there and sometimes it says that it's connected but if you open a browser there's no internet conncetion.

 

[yassarikhan786]

It could be a driver problem. Other than that, you may have to consult one of the uni IT guys to find out if there is an issue on their end.

 

[MadMarc]

It could be a driver problem. Other than that, you may have to consult one of the uni IT guys to find out if there is an issue on their end.

Thanks for your help!

I also think it might be a driver problem as the laptop is quite new and apple might not have optimised the bootcamp drivers for this model and Windows 8 yet.

The IT guy also thought that this might be the problem and suggested that I tried it with windows 7 but I can't be bothered to install it and then do the setup again before I've tried everything with Windows 8.

It's quite poor imo that a world class institute of technology's IT guys give up that quick and can't really do much more than I could have done on my own.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Thanks for your help!

I also think it might be a driver problem as the laptop is quite new and apple might not have optimised the bootcamp drivers for this model and Windows 8 yet.

The IT guy also thought that this might be the problem and suggested that I tried it with windows 7 but I can't be bothered to install it and then do the setup again before I've tried everything with Windows 8.

It's quite poor imo that a world class institute of technology's IT guys give up that quick and can't really do much more than I could have done on my own.

If it is a driver issue, not much the IT guys could do to be fair.

I used a laptop running Win 8 at uni and I had intermittent connection problems (wireless only). I was never able to resolve them and gave up on trying to connect via WiFi.

 

[hmmblah]

Have you tried it in OSX?

Pro-tip: Don't use bootcamp. I've had hardware die twice in my MBP and Apple blames it on using bootcamp. Their support actually told me that bootcamp isn't supported and they don't recommend running Windows through it. They recommended using Parallels or VMWare fusion. I'm using Fusion now. Support said when running windows natively even with their bootcamp drivers, windows doesn't properly use power management and throttling. I'm not convinced it's that though. Each time the hardware failed I was in Windows fine and rebooted the laptop into OSX. On reboot, OSX hard locks. It has to be forced off. On the next power on, you get nothing but a black screen. Resetting NVRAM and the SMC did nothing.

They made good on the last repair, needed new wlan, gpu, and a new logic board. The first time it was repaired in May it cost my employer $400 to fix it. Apple Care is a must for sure as a 1 year warranty on a ~$3000 machine is insane. But hey, my laptop looks cool!

Thinking on this, I should update my review here.

 

[MadMarc]

Have you tried it in OSX?

Pro-tip: Don't use bootcamp. I've had hardware die twice in my MBP and Apple blames it on using bootcamp. Their support actually told me that bootcamp isn't supported and they don't recommend running Windows through it. They recommended using Parallels or VMWare fusion. I'm using Fusion now. Support said when running windows natively even with their bootcamp drivers, windows doesn't properly use power management and throttling. I'm not convinced it's that though. Each time the hardware failed I was in Windows fine and rebooted the laptop into OSX. On reboot, OSX hard locks. It has to be forced off. On the next power on, you get nothing but a black screen. Resetting NVRAM and the SMC did nothing.

I haven't tried it in OSX but a mate has the exact same model and runs OSX without any problems.
Ok, that's....interesting as it's recommende by the uni to use bootcamp and I didn't read anything bad about it, but your experience changes that.

But hey, my laptop looks cool!

That was also the reason why I bought it and thanks to special deals the university has with Apple the MB Air offered the best value for money out of the ultrabooks.

 

[Stryker64]

I haven't tried it in OSX but a mate has the exact same model and runs OSX without any problems.
Ok, that's....interesting as it's recommende by the uni to use bootcamp and I didn't read anything bad about it, but your experience changes that.


That was also the reason why I bought it and thanks to special deals the university has with Apple the MB Air offered the best value for money out of the ultrabooks.

Regarding BootCamp, there's a weird quirk with MBP where the CPU and GPUs will run at higher temperatures as well as higher fan speeds for absolutely no reason, unless Windows 8 idling requires the same amount of computational power as light gaming in OS X. Might be something deliberate to show off OS X, but it's best not to run BootCamp because of some firmware issue and if you have to use a program that is only available in Windows try using Wine.

Now on topic of the original post, are you having WiFi connection issues in both Windows and OS X? If it only happens in Windows double check all the WiFi connection credentials, and if they are okay then make sure you have downloaded the latest BootCamp drivers.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

It sounds like a security problem. Most secured WLAN such as universities have a select list of Antiviruses that are approved and or needed in order to connect to the network. I would talk to your help desk to find whether or not your AV is approved. When you sign into a university network a script runs to check for this, if you have no AV that might also be an issue. You may also have known virus said script is designed to look for. I know bootcamp for a lot of universities can have problems.

I have installed a few of these security measures.