Kevin's Watch

In the name of everything holy, can anyone help me with this wireless crap???

I have Earthlink Ethernet (sp?), through Time-Warner Cable. That's the computer I'm typing on. I just put a Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G on it. It's working just fine.

I just put a Linksys Compact Wireless-G USB Adapter on the upstairs computer.

And I can't figure out why it's not working. It seems to be saying the upstairs adapter is connected to the router, but it can't connect to the internet. Looking at the boards at Linksys shows me many other people have had this problem, but there don't seem to be solutions. Only stuff like, "Have you tried XXX?"


EDIT: Well, I uninstalled and reinstalled. And I noticed that the security WPA that I originally put into the Adapter when I installed it keeps changing to WEP. So I disabled the security on the Router, and it now works. This edit is being done from the wireless cpu. So now, I either figure out how to re-enable security on both so that it does not change on the Adapter, or I don't bother with security.

Are you connecting using a program that came with the adapter? I've had trouble like that sometimes with the computer 'connecting' but not actually letting me get access, and I've had to start disabling the programs I got with the adapter and using Windows to connect. (The program I have, I right click on the tray icon and "Enable Windows Zero Configuration"; the other computer, with a different adapter, I just uninstalled the program entirely.)

I never could work out why it happened, but now you mention it it did start when I changed from a router with WEP to ones with WPA security.

Yeah, I'm using the cd rom that came with the router on the one ocmputer, and the cd rom that came with the adapter on the other.

Try connecting through Windows, then, with the router's security back on. Disable or exit the program you normally use, then you need to find the connection (Start>Connect To>Wireless Network Connection is usually the one), right-click and select "View available wireless networks". Select the right one, click "Connect", and it should ask for your key (twice). See if it works better that way.

Wecome to the world of realizing you gotta be a IT technician to work with this stuff.

If you disabled security, it might be working now because you are on your neighbors network.

Not sure if you need help now. But if you ever do.

I don't have a Linksys, so I can't give you very specific help. But ...

In general, you get the router connected to the universe first, then you get the XP connected to the router. In both cases, first you ensure a physical connection, then you ensure a DHCP connection, then you ensure an IP connection, then you ensure a DNS connection.

First, give your router a SSID that you can recognize and know its yours. Remember, your neighbors will see this if they browse the available networks. So don't do what my neighbor did and call it "DaddyGodAmongMen".

Leave security off until everything else is working. This should not be an issue as long as you don't have any shared folders on your computer.

Next, get your router connected to the internet. The management webpage on the router should have a thingy that tells you if it is. If it is, then you will have an IP address that is "for the router". This is the address that the router uses with the universe.

If it doesn't have one, then you may need to make sure your cable is connected, and make sure that the router DHCP _client_ is enabled. The DHCP client is what goes out on the network, finds a DHCP server, and gets an address from it. Your router needs to go out to Earthlink universe and get itself an address. (The DHCP _server_ gives addresses on the wireless side, you need that too, but not yet.)

Next, make sure that DNS between the router and the Earthlink universe works. DNS is how you look up a name, like www.cnn.com, and get an address for it. Your linksys management webpage should have ping utility somewhere. You should be able to ping something like www.google.com or www.cnn.com or whatever.

If all that is a go, then the router is working outwardly. If its not, you probably need more help than I can give you here.

Now you can configure your XP to connect to the linksys. Either browse for networks, or type your SSID in manually, to connect to the router. Be sure to make sure you flag your network as "preferred", and you may even want to turn off the part that lets you connect to something else if there is no preferred network around. (Only laptops need that, your desktop won't ever be in Starbucks.)

XP clearly shows if you're connected to a network, and which one. Just click around, you'll find it. You can tell by the SSID that you're on the right router.

If all is well, you can do "ipconfig" from the command prompt (DOS) and see that you have an ip address for your wireless connection. If you don't, you need to enable the DHCP client on your XP.

Next make sure you can ping the router's address. It's probably 192.168.0.1 or something like that. It's in the manual. The XP's address will be 192.168.0.100 or something like that. (Remember, the universe between the XP and the router is a different universe than the one between the router and the rest of the world. The address in one universe (network) have no meaning in the other.)

Next, try to ping www.cnn.com from the XP to make sure DNS is working on the XP. If it doesn't work, you may need to enable DNS passthrough in the router. Or maybe your wireless settings don't have "obtain a DNS server addresss from DHCP" turned on.

If that works, you're up! But not secure.

Enable security on the router, and make yourself a good WEP key. Write it down. In your router manual, for instance. Now you have to reconfigure your XP with the same security configuration and security key.

Use the "repair" facility on XP to bring the router back online.

Lots of good advice here.

The main reason I get this particular error message is when my laptop can't get an IP address from my router's DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol--it's the protocol which assigns IP addresses to client computers). I've got a Belkin. It's the only router I've ever owned, so my particular problem may be specific to this router.

However, "limited connectivity" in this case means that your upstairs computer is at least recognizing the router and trying to connect, but for some reason or other, the router isn't assigning an IP address. I'm not sure why this would happen, but it does indeed happen with my router, so I guess other people can experience the same problem.

Here's how I fixed it: manually assign your upstairs computer an IP address. To do this, you'll need the range of IP addresses which your router uses. You can do this by going to the router's main configuration page (type in its IP address into your browser's address bar--usually 192.168.2.1, or something like that) and select whichever option allows you to configure DHCP. Once you have the range of IP addresses, just select an address within that range, and go upstairs to the other computer.

On your second computer, go to your admin account and select Settings>Network Connections and right click on Local Area Connection. Select Properties from the menu, and go to the General tab. In the box, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and then click properties. In the next pop-up window, you should be able to select either "automatically assign an IP address" or "manually assign an IP address." Select the latter, and input the IP address within the range from above. Important: make sure you don't pick an IP address of your router or your other computers. You'll also have to input your Default Gateway IP address; this is your router's IP address. And you'll need to input primary and secondary DNS server addresses.

I believe that's all you'll need. It fixed my problem. You'll definitely want to run with security on. I'd even enable MAC address filtering.

Wayfriend is probably right about connecting to a neighbor's network. We accidentally did that a few times before I found a fix for this problem.

Do you need to register your MAC addresses with the ISP? I had one ISP where we had the router and every ethernet card's individual MAC address to a list of approved devices before we could access our internet. Thankfully it's a practice that seems to have dropped out of use, because it was a major pain!