JohnBW
@aol.com
|  Wireless with Vista
I recently replaced my old pc with a Dell inspiron 6400 and stayed with AOL who provided me with a free netscape router. They told me how to set it up wireless and all was fine for a while. I then had a problem which involved the router and aol talked me through correcting it. We got as far as running it on a connection with the ethernet cable but they said they could not tell me how to go wireless as there was some problem with Microsoft and Vista and that they couldn't tell me how to go wireless as it might damage my machine. I found this hard to believe and have phoned several times since and spoken to different people at AOL and got the same answer. dell can't help me. Please HOW DO I GO WIRELESS?
Thanks
John |
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PickAName
join:2007-11-05
united kingd
| Is it possible it's a Netgear rather than a Netscape router? If it is, what Netgear is it?
What's the problem you actually get (error message?, what can't you do?)
Do you have a wireless card installed via Vista (what card is it and did it install OK)?
What have you tried so far? |
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johnbw
@aol.com
| Yes you're right I'm just not very computer literate. I have a Netgear DG834Gv3 router. According to my Dell receipt I have a Intel® Pro wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card for core 2 duo processor. Which will most probably mean more to you than it does to me. What happened was that AOL talked me through the installation as far as having the laptop connected via the ethernet cable but refused to tell me what I then had to do so I could remove the ethernet cable and go wireless. It's these last few steps that I don't know how to do. Hope you can help. Best regards John |
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PickAName
join:2007-11-05
united kingd
edit:
November 7th, @02:32PM
| Log on to your router
Open Internet Explorer.
Type in the address »192.168.0.1 or »routerlogin.com
Enter the user "admin" and the password "password" (don't put the quotes)
* If you changed the password previously, put whatever you changed it to
Turn on wireless on the router
Click WIRELESS SETTINGS on the left menu
Enter a NAME (SSID) on the middle page - for example "myaccesspoint"
Choose your region, channel (e.g 11) and mode (e.g. g+b)
Tick Enable Wireless Access Point
Tick Allow Broadcast of Name (SSID)
Don't tick Wireless Isolation
Tick Disable on Security Options (can change it later)
Click the Apply button at the bottom and let it refresh
Click the Setup Access List button in the middle of the page
make sure Turn Access Control On isn't ticked, if it is untick it and click Apply
Log out of the router (logout link at the bottom left)
Configure your wireless card
I'm assuming you're using Windows XP and your WiFi card is installed properly (darn - I just read you're using Vista. The stuff you need to click on will be very similar to XP, if not let me know and I'll dig up some screen shots of Vista, or compromise my principles and install the darned thing)
Find the Ethernet cable going from the back of your PC into the back of the router and unplug it from the router (so when you connect via WiFi you know it's working rather than really using the Ethernet cable)
Double click the Wifi card icon in the system tray at the bottom right (or go to control panel - network connections and find it there)
Click View Wireless Networks
It'll give you a list of all access points it can see
Double click the one that says myaccesspoint and connect to it
Test it
Test that it works by opening Internet Explorer and trying a web page or 2. Don't access anything that uses passwords or banking as your network isn't secure - anyone that wants to scan it can capture your wifi packets and view what you're sending to the web
Turn wireless off
If it works, reconnect the Ethernet cable, log on to the router again and untick "Enable Wireless Access Point", then click the Apply button and log off the router (i.e. turn wireless back off)
Come back here and let me know it worked and I'll tell you how to set up security so no one else can use your wireless and all the data you send is secure (i.e. how to set up WPA) |
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johnbw
@aol.com
|  reply to JohnBW
That's marvellous, it works, you're a genius. Many thanks
I had some trouble finding the access points but in the end I did though I'm not sure I know how I found them. I'm now reconnected by the ethernet cable please how do I set up the WPA.
One thing I don't know whether it's noteable but after I did all the above, when I accessed this site it came up with "runtime error" and asked me whether I wanted to debug. Each time I replied yes, AOL stopped responding. It did that 3 times. On the 4th time I said I didn't want to debug after "runtime error" and aol stayed connected. Seems strange.
Best regards John |
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PickAName
join:2007-11-05
united kingd
| Set up a WPA key
Log in to the router as you did before
click WIRELESS SETTINGS on the left
tick "Enable access point" and "allow broadcast of name (SSID)"
Choose WPA-PSK in the security options (don't use WEP, it's not secure enough)
Type in a network key, the longer the better. I use 63 characters. You could use a shorter phrase like 21 characters and repeat it 3 times to get 63 characters. You need to remember it though - copy it and paste it into notepad or word or something so you don't remember it incorrectly
Click apply
Use the same WPA key on your PC
Disconnect your ethernet cable as you did before (to force it to use wifi)
You could go into control panel then network connections then the wireless card settings then properties, find the wireless tab and choose WPA-PSK and enter the same network key (phrase you made up) and OK it all.
Alternatively you should just be able to double click the wireless card icon in the system tray, try and connect to the access point and it should prompt you for the network key or phrase. Then paste in the phrase you made a note of before.
Limit your network to only allow your wireless card to connect to it
Make sure you're connected via the wireless card
Log on to the router
Click WIRELESS STATION ACCESS LIST to load it's page
Tick "Turn access control on"
Tick your wireless card in "available wireless stations" (it'll be the only one there) and add it as a trusted station (card)
You'll probably lose the connection to the access point, so close te browser window, give it a min to re-find it and log on to it again and test to make sure you can access web page etc
If it doesn't connect, double click the wireless icon in the system tray, find your access point and reconnect to it
Job done
Things to note
- you can hide your acces point to make it more secure. You untick "broadcast SSID" on the router (it won't shout it's name out to everyone any more), then go into your wireless card's settings and type in the access point SSID. You don't really need to though as anyone that would be trying to hack you will be able to see the "hidden" access point anyway
- If you leave it broadcasting the SSID (most people do) be aware of privacy. (don't use your house name as anyone with a laptop with a wireless card in it outside your house, or your neighbours can see the name)
- Any problems (e.g. you lose connection and can't get it back via the wireless) just plug the ethernet back in, log in to the access point and turn off the access control, or disable the WPA-PSK or re-enable "broadcast SSID" and try again. I.e. rebuild it bit by bit making sure it works with each step. Saves time trying to work out which bit is broken
- delete the notepad or wordpad file with the network key or phrase in it. |
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johnbw
@aol.com
| I got as far as setting up the WPA key, disconnected the ethernet, went into network connections but could get no further because the Wireless network connection and icon had "the settings saved in this computer do not match the requirements of the network". I tried "properties" and "settings" every way but could not get to WPA-PSK in order to be able to enter the 63 character network key. Double clicking on the wireless tab only comes up with the same message. I've rechecked and tried every way but cannot get to the point where I need to reenter the same network key. HELP! |
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PickAName
join:2007-11-05
united kingd
edit:
November 14th, @09:30AM
| Is this any good?
»technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr···035.aspx
Or a search for "set WPA key windows Vista" or something similar on Google?
Barring that give me a couple of days and I'll install Vista and see what I can find
edit...
This might be more specific for how to change the settings on the Vista machine
»itc.virginia.edu/network/wireles···ml#vista
You're looking for
1. Security type (or something similar) = WPA-PSK (might be called just WPA)
2. Encryption type or something similar) = TKIP (specifically not AES)
WPA is the scheme used to decide what encryption is used and how the wireless devices talk to each other (like two people greeting when they meet), TKIP is the encryption used in the actual packets or data (like after you greet each other and work out you both speak French, you start talking to each other in French)
Alternatively there might be a checkbox you can tick to say "allow Windows to configure my device" or something along those lines. When you installed your Wireless card it might have come with it's own software to configure it. Sometimes that software will tick the box to disable Windows from configuring the settings, as it's expecting you to use the software that came with the device.
Also - you could try a really short key (like the first 8 letters of the alphabet) to make sure there's no typos, then put a longer key in when you can get it working (eliminates the possibility of human error) |
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johnbw
@aol.com
| reply to JohnBW
I've tried the 2 links and can't get anywhere. When I did get to Security Type the options didn't include wpa-psk or just wpa. And there was no drop down menu for Encryption type.
So I'm afarid i'm back to asking you for help again.
Many thanks
John |
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PickAName
join:2007-11-05
united kingd | quote:
When I did get to Security Type the options didn't include wpa-psk or just wpa
What is listed? |
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