I now have WPA2 (aes?) forced on N800 and it works. Apparently dd-wrt in "wpa2 mixed" mode wasn't compatible with N800 scheme. I've been working with Winbloze for 20 years? now and didn't know there were updates outside of Windows Update? I had no ability for wpa2 on my xp tabletpc or wifey's xp laptop...only wpa. Atheros provided wpa2 but I preferred using std windows. After some googling I found various hotfixes for XP SP2 that are outside of Windows Update mechanism....why? How the heck do you find out about these other than knowing you need them and googling? After applying hotfix dd-wrt is now set for "wpa2/aes only"....and all clients are on strongest except for wife's "legacy" (ahem) laptop. My last option to try was shortening the wpa2 passphrase....it is fairly large and I heard there were issues with this. thanks all for help/suggestions...all is well again. mike