Ipad Wifi Not Connecting

[USNret]

My wife has a wifi-only iPad that we bought in the States. She is now in BKK on an extended visit; I'm in the States.

Her parents have True internet at home, with a wifi router provided by True. Her iPad, and several family computers were connecting to the wifi with no problem. Then one day last week, the iPad stopped connecting to wifi. Zippo, nothing. I've been giving her technical advice by phone, but we still haven't solved the problem.

Among the things we've tried (each item multiple times):

Hard reset of the iPad

Unplug then reboot the wifi router

Turn wifi services off then back on, on the iPad

Reset iPad network settings

Tell iPad to "forget" the wifi network, then re-entered the password

Finally, full back-up of the iPad with USB cable, then reset to factory specs.

Now she has a blank iPad, and still no wifi connection.

She took it to the service center, I think at Fortune IT (AppleCare). It connected it to their network with no problem they and told her the problem is that the signal on her wifi router is too weak. Then she took the iPad elsewhere and connected to another wifi net no problem.

Here's the thing... The router is "owned" by True and I'm not sure she can get into the router settings to adjust power. Besides which, I don't buy that explanation. The router is in her bedroom, about 4 feet from where she's using the iPad. Meanwhile, her sisters all throughout the house are surfing from the same router with no issues. I was there last month & surfed on my Macbook from 2 rooms away. So I don't see low power as the issue.

She's pretty fed up, although she's been good about doing all these tech fixes that I've told her. The iPad is 3rd Gen (Retina display, but not the very latest model.) It's still under original warranty although, as I said, bought in the States.

I tried to enter a trouble call on the Apple website, but seems like you cannot do that anymore. All you can do is find a service center to take it in and she's already done that to no avail. She's pretty non-confrontational; if I was there I'd go in, demand them to fix it, or give us a new iPad, but she won't do that.

Any further suggestions on what to do? Either a technical fix we can try, or some way to make Apple get off the dime and actually fix it? Thanks!

[heatherm]

I'm not an internet person, but here are the two problems I've had connecting to True with a tablet. First, sometimes True has a home page that needs to open before you can connect with apps. To fix it just open the browser and let it load. The second, and more likely, your router might not have enough ports for all the people to connect. Turn off everyone elses laptops and try to connect. You might need to buy one with more ports.

Sent from my GT-P1010 using Thaivisa Connect App

[buenavad]

Sometimes when the devices have the same name, for example "iPad" , the router doesn't assign an ip address when another device is connected at the same time, so, I would recommend you to change the default name of the iPad and try again. Same happened to my wife's iPad at the office.

[Gregory Morozov]

Could be wireless N mode incompatibility. Rare but happens.

[snowflake]

Change the name of the Ipad as suggested, then make sure that there are no other devices connected to the wifi, I assume it is password protected. Reset the Wifi itself, make a new password, let the ipad be the first to connect. If that does not work, take the wifi box to the 3bb office and let them test it, they will most likely swap it out as it sounds OLD...

I hope you manage to get her online, I had the same problem with my Ipad and my girlfriends Ipad. We just confused the wifi... but it is sorted now, after the name change...

[Dork]

Obviously there is a compatibility problem between the ipad and the TRUE wifi router. I would lean towards blaming the latter.

If you can login to the TRUE wifi router settings, you could try changing the following;

1 - Channel selection. If currently set to auto, change it to a specific channel (or vv)

2 - Security mode. Change from WEP or WPA to WPA2. If using WPA2, set the encryption to AES.

3 - Make sure the SSID doesn't include any special characters or blank spaces.

4 - Check the wireless network mode. "Mixed" will give the best compatibility (but not performance)

5 - Change the wifi password. (Again, no special characters)

If you can't login to the TRUE router and there isn't anyone there to do the technical stuff, the quickest solution might be to buy a wifi AP for a few hundred Baht and plug that into the TRUE router. Most shops could set it up in a couple of minutes & check that the ipad connects so it would just be a case of taking it home and plugging in.

Good luck! I know how frustrating it can be trying to resolve a problem like this from afar.

[USNret]

Thank you for all the suggestions. I'm condensing the above for my wife to follow step-by-step. I don't see how it can be so hard to fix a relatively simple problem like this.