PSP internet

[Frank]

How do I get my (brand new) PSP to recognize my wireless router?

I tried just about all possibilities, I think.

My router is supposed to allow clients who use WEP128 as well as WPA PSK. And the SID is broadcast and seen by the PSP. But I cannot get it to connect.

I googled, but just about all articles I came across simply recomended disabling all security, or ony covered unsecure access points. And the few remaining ones didn't work. There are about 20 other access points in range here, a few of them unsecured. But I really want to use my own connection.

Can the problem be that I only have a hex value for the key, and that the PSP expects a password? If so, how do I solve that?


Btw, I have firmware 2.71

 

[Frank]

Never mind. I reset the router to only use simple WPA with TKIP, not WPA2 or whatever, and it works.

 

[Frank]

Btw, couldn't Sony at least fire the guy responsible for the extremely bad on-screen keyboard? Something worse would be appreciated.

 

[Arwin]

Btw, couldn't Sony at least fire the guy responsible for the extremely bad on-screen keyboard? Something worse would be appreciated.

It could have been better, I agree, though you have to understand this thing is designed to cope with all languages, I think, which is tricky.

I think the latest firmware supports WPA2 as well, but I'm not sure.

 

[cthellis42]

Well, for anyone used to texting from their cell phone, the on-screen keyboard isn't TOO bad. Which, I assume, is the point. (More universally recognized input method.)

...but that's no excuse for them not having 2-3 other methods built in, and letting the user switch to the preferred default.



I normally connect to my network with 64-bit WEP (I had to, at the time, so all my devices could get on. I'll have to check what TiVo supports now...)

But just because I'm curious, I ran my router through the gamut. The PSP connected successfully at 64-bit WEP, 128-bit WEP, WPA-TKIP, and WPA-AES (My router can do "personal" and "enterprise" versions of both, but I only tested personal.)

It balked on WPA2-AES and WPA2-AES+TKIP. And on none of them could I connect when I switched my router to G-only. I've seen comments online of people able to connect to WPA2 at 802.11g on 3.30 firmware (I'm on 3.40), but see no evidence for it, nor can I find any adjustable settings that I might need to activate new methods. Even when entering a brand new network connection (I thought maybe an old one kept the old settings), the WLAN security setting list has no mention of WPA2.


Meanwhile, I was GOING to re-address the keyboard situation after all the password entering, but even though the method IS really bad at number entry (since you have to go through lower-case AND upper-case letters first), I found I was able to get used to the press-and-hold timing pretty quick, so in the end it didn't bug me too much.

 

[Frank]

Yes, my router was configured for WPA2-AES+TKIP.


I can offhand think of at least two better ways to enter keyboard input: the Dvorak way (althoug that takes some learning, you can simplify it greatly with good onscreen feedback), and a simple radial menu. That would require more keypresses, but would be simplest and most intuitive.

And I agree, that they at least could have offered multiple ways to do it.

Btw, I miss being able to install my own utilities and such, like I can on my gsm. That would make it a great PDA replacement. Although you would want a small attachable keyboard for that. That would also make the web browser much more useable. (And I would love it if I could use the browser in free-scroll mode.)

 

[Arwin]

but even though the method IS really bad at number entry (since you have to go through lower-case AND upper-case letters first), I found I was able to get used to the press-and-hold timing pretty quick, so in the end it didn't bug me too much.

The press-and-hold thing is indeed nice. However, it sounds like you're not aware yet of that you can switch between different setups using select. There are three modes:

regular alphabet
regular alphabet with special characters
numeric

And guess which one works quite well with numbers.

I didn't discover it until FW 3.0, but I think it's been in there longer than that.

 

[cthellis42]

Yeah, I know you can flip through some options. But moving your finger down to hit the Select key is basically as inconvenient as working out the press-and-hold timings. Since what I was using them for was hex WEP key entries, it didn't make sense to switch to number mode either, since I'd only type in one or two, then having to go back to a letter.


...and they should still have completely different text entry modes, too, and not just different character configurations.