I have a friend staying with me these days, and his birthday was a few days ago. He decided that he deserved a Wii, so between the two of us we bought him a Wii and a handful of accessories.
We had a bit of trouble getting it online. I own a Linksys WRT54G wireless router (revision 3) which is running the DD-WRT firmware (version 23 SP1, I believe). Apparently the Wii really doesn’t like DD-WRT firmware because it simply wouldn’t go online. I figured it had to be something related to the encryption mode in use. I was using WPA-PSK (TKIP) encryption, which is supported by the Wii, but the Wii just couldn’t make the initial connection to the internet. My router’s System Information console showed the Wii constantly connecting to and disconnecting from the router.
I eventually realized that the encryption setting may in fact be preventing the Wii from connecting to the Internet, despite the support for the encryption protocol in use. What I tried next was to disable the wireless encryption on my router and…. success! The Wii connected!
Following the initial connection, the Wii attempts to download a system upgrade, which I allowed it to do. I was hoping that the upgrade would include broader router and networking support.
Fortunately, my hunch was correct since I was able to re-enable the WPA wireless encryption without affecting the Wii’s internet connection. We wouldn’t want to be running an unsecured wireless access point now, would we!
Posted in Nintendo, Personal, TV, Technology, Wii
