another wireless set up question

[cirks]

Ok, just got a Netgear DG834G wireless router with free W511 pcmcia card. Also got a W311 wireless pci card for my pc. The router and laptop 'talk' fine with internet connectivity perfect. However, the PC, although being recognised by the router (the MAC of the card is seen in the access control list) and picking up the network will not connect to any IP address etc via IE.
The little 'Smart Configuration' symbol in the system tray just remains amber (ie found network and trying to communicate) but I can't get any further. Norton Internet Security etc is all disabled. Dynamic IP selected.

Any thoughts.

[Andrew Noakes]

I had exactly that problem with my lap top, yesterday. It's a Mac, but the wireless kit is much the same. In my case the laptop had not been set up with an address of a DNS server, so IE didn't know where to look to translate web addresses.

If you open the router control panel in IE, then click Router Status, it tells you the addresses of the Domain Name Server(s) in use - I copied these to the TCP/IP configuration on the laptop and it worked fine.

[cirks]

Andrew,
thanks, that's one thing I can try later. Didn't need to do it for the laptop but can still give it a go on the PC.

[arcturus]

You should not need to set DNS by hand. The router passes them to all connected units when they obtain their IP adress by DHCP.

Are you using WEP at all?

[Andrew Noakes]

arcturus said:

The router passes them to all connected units when they obtain their IP adress by DHCP.

...if you're using DHCP, which I'm not.

[cirks]

I am using DHCP so perhaps that's not the solution!

I'm not using WEP though

Both laptop and PC are running Win2k (laptop is server) so don't think it is an OS issue at least.

[arcturus]

cirks said:

I'm not using WEP though

For now, that is good - one less thing to eliminate.

Have you gone into IE connection properties and changed it to 'Never Dial a Connection'? If you haven't, it might try and use it's old dial up settings.

>> Edited by arcturus on Friday 1st October 10:48

[arcturus]

Ah, just reread first post - it's a wireless connection thing, not an IE issue. Back to drawing board.

Is the Netgear icon in the system tray really amber or is it red? And when you open the configuration utility, what does it show in the available networks pane?


>> Edited by arcturus on Friday 1st October 10:54

[JonRB]

I've got a similar problem actually. Set up a LinkSys 802.11b/g Wireless Access Point last night and tried to connect a Sony VAIO with built-in 802.11b.

Initially I'd set up 128-bit WEP but when trying to enter the WEP key into the VAIO it barfed and said it wanted either 40-odd bits or 104 bits.

So I altered the WAP to use 64-bit WEP and the VAIO seemed to accept that and connect ok, but then assigned itself a private IP address on a completely different subnet to my network and hence can't see the network or the ADSL router. So pretty useless.

The ADSL router is also a DHCP server and all the wired computers (including the VAIO when wired) get a correct IP address without problems.

Weird.

>> Edited by JonRB on Friday 1st October 10:59

[arcturus]

JonRB said:

but then assigned itself a private IP address on a completely different subnet to my network and hence can't see the network or the ADSL router. So pretty useless.

By any chance is the wireless machine running XP SP2?

[JonRB]

arcturus said:

By any chance is the wireless machine running XP SP2?

Nope. SP1a. I don't trust SP2 enough to install it yet.

[arcturus]

Ok Jon, long shot here, but I had a similar problem the other day when I could not get a wireless laptop to connect to the router. The problem turned out to be that the router was set to channel 13 but the laptop could not tune to channel 13.

In the end retuning both the router and the laptop to channel 6 allowed a connection. It would seem that some wireless devices only go up to channel 10.

But I don't think this is cirks problem



>> Edited by arcturus on Friday 1st October 11:27

[cirks]

arcturus said:

But I don't think this is cirks problem

Neither do I! Both laptop and PC can actually detect the network on channel 11. The PC must be able to 'see' the router in that it picks up the network and shows 'amber'. The router can definately see the PC card in it's ACL.

Even so, can't even get router page to display (ie http://192.168.0.1 etc) on PC.

[arcturus]

Cirks, has the PC got a sensible ip address? ie 192.168.0.*

If not, what address is it showing?


>> Edited by arcturus on Friday 1st October 12:26

[cirks]

The PC is setup to work with DHCP. It has an existing wired network card as well(not connected to anything at the moment) which has a static IP address of 169.254.181.199. IPConfig/all shows this plus 0.0.0.0 for the wireless card. The 0.0.0.0 must be due to it not getting an IP address from the router (ie the main problem!)

[arcturus]

No, this points to another issue. If the card can't get an IP address by DHCP then it should default to a IP Autoconfiguration address like your fixed card has. So one question to ask is why has it not done so.

Maybe it's just a case of reloading the drivers. You did load the drivers before putting the wireless card in rather than inserting the card and then installing the drivers?

[arcturus]

Also are you running any firewall software on any of the systems. If so disable it for now.

[cirks]

arcturus said:

should default to a IP Autoconfiguration address like your fixed card has.

The IP on the fixed card is a manually entered static one rather than a autoconfig one.

arcturus said:

You did load the drivers before putting the wireless card in rather than inserting the card and then installing the drivers?

Yup, I installed drivers before installing card.

arcturus said:

Also are you running any firewall software on any of the systems. If so disable it for now.

Have Norton Internet Security installed but have disabled it.




>> Edited by cirks on Friday 1st October 15:42

>> Edited by cirks on Friday 1st October 15:42

[john_p]

With my 834G I was getting some strange errors at the extremities of range - it would say it was running in "Limited mode" or similar and not give itself a proper IP. I think the 54mbit/11mbit autosensing goes a bit screwy.

Try forcing it to 802.11b mode ?

[cirks]

John,

thanks I'll give that a go. I'll also try to reduce the distance between the PC and the router. Problem at the moment until the ADSL extension cable I've ordered eventually turns up - either that or I lug the PC to where the master phone socket is.....

edited to say John rather than insulting him having called him Paul for some weired reason

>> Edited by cirks on Saturday 2nd October 18:26