Question : Problem: Laptop computers running Vista are unable to reach certain websites when WI-FI uses WPA2-AES.

Laptop computers using the available wireless network are unable to reach certain websites when wireless encryption is set to WPA2-AES.

Router: Linksys WRT54GX

Laptop Computers:
2 x MacBook Pros running Vista. Internal wireless adapters.
1 x Alienware running Vista. External wireless adapter. (Linksys PCMCIA cardbus card - WPC54G.)

These websites ARE accessible to computers connected to the router via WIRED Ethernet.

When encryption is changed to WPA2-TKIP *OR* WPA2-TKIP+AES, these websites ARE accessible via wireless.

Example Inaccessible Websites:
Weather.com
YouTube.com
SteamPowered.com
hoopsandyoyo.com

Pinging these websites from any of the wireless machines results in the following (while in WPA2-AES):

C:\Users\Blue>ping steampowered.com
Pinging steampowered.com [63.228.223.100] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 63.228.223.100:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)

Pinging these websites *from the router* produces the following:

 "PING steampowered.com (63.228.223.100): 32 data bytes"
,"40 bytes from 63.228.223.100: icmp_seq=0 ttl=56 time=40.1 ms"
,"40 bytes from 63.228.223.100: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=39.7 ms"
,"40 bytes from 63.228.223.100: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=39.0 ms"
,"--- steampowered.com ping statistics ---"
,"3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss"
,"round-trip min/avg/max = 39.0/39.6/40.1 ms"

Note: Some websites (such as Weather.com) prevent ping-back to any machine presumably as a security precaution. This was taken into account during testing.

Any ideas on why this might be happening? I've noticed all the non-loading websites in question tend to display flash objects on their front pages. Could that somehow factor into this?

Thanks for your help!

Answer : Problem: Laptop computers running Vista are unable to reach certain websites when WI-FI uses WPA2-AES.

DD-WRT and Tomato void any support I might get from Linksys. I'm not sure it's a good idea in my situation, but I'll discuss it and consider installing that firmware.

Darr - That Alienware had the same issue with a USB-based WI-FI device as well. I don't think the issue has to do with the Wi-fi devices, but rather Vista.