EA2500 won't connect to my EA3500 Router

[anichol]

I bought a new router today because my WRT54GL was giving me some fits. I purchased an EA3500 and I'm using an EA2500 adapter on the desktop since the router can't reach it via ethernet.  Some of my early troubles with this combo began with not being able to test upload bandwidth.  It would just time out and give an error via the built in Cisco (OOKLA) utitliy and through speedtest.net after which, the network would show no internet access and I'd have to reset the adapter.  After trying to troubleshoot that issue it grew into zero internet access for my desktop however my Nexus would have wifi access without issue.  If I'd startup in safe mode with networking I'd have net access shortly and then it would quit about 30 seconds after startup.  I've tried uninstalling all drivers for the wireless NIC and the Cisco Connect software while doing everything manually but nothing changes.  This PC simply won't gain internet access with the EA3500 or even allow me to access the router through the default gateway IP.  I've since put the WRT45GL back in place and I have access again with my EA2500 adapter.  I should note that with the EA3500 in place, if I disconnected from my wireless I couldnt see any networks until I unplugged the adapter and reinserted it into the USB port (i've also tried many different ports).  I've named the SSID's of the two routers differently, tried a manual setup of the wifi, tried the CD setup, the wifi protected setup, no security, and WPA2 to no avail.  I can't seem to get the EA2500 adapter and the EA3500 router to get along.  I'm running W7 x64 Pro.  

[kawal]

i think the adapter model is AE2500. the router model "EA3500" is correct though.

[anichol]

Yeah that's correct, getting my acronyms all mixed up.  

[Wizzard]

Did you try making any changes on the router to fix the issue? If not, please try this. Launch Cisco Connect. Click on router settings and then click on 'advanced settings' and click ok.

This will open the router's web interface. Click on the wireless tab at the top. Then click on manual. After this, you will see the options for 5GHZ wireless settings and 2.4 GHZ. wireless settings. Change the 'network name' for both 5GHZ & 2.4GHZ settings. The network name shouldn't be identical. Change the channel only for 2.4GHZ settings to 11.

Now on your desktop, it would show you two different networks. Try connecting to 5GHZ network first, in case it doesn't connect, try 2.4GHZ network.

[anichol]

Yeah I tried all of that.  I noticed that when I'd try doing a speedtest and during the upload the 2500 unit would get really hot to the touch.  I took it back and got a Belkin unit that worked perfectly on the first try.

[Wizzard]

Did you try downloading the latest drivers from the website homesupport.cisco.com and installed it manually? You could have tried running a USB extension cable from the back of the computer out to somewhere else that's maybe got a bit more airflow. Then would have checked the status.

[anichol]

Yup I got the latest drivers, installed everything manually a few times, and I had the adapter out on the desk with plenty of airflow.  Nothing changed a thing, could've been a defective device.