Re: OT. Wireless network problem
- From: David Aldred <nr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2006 19:14:18 +0100
Tony Gillam wrote:
Amilo D7820 + belkin 54g notebook card. XP Home SP2. Linksys 54G
Broadband router. Laptop can connect to home network with cable.
Plugging in card produces "No network detected".
Do the lights come on on the card?
I know card works in
laptop as it can detect a wireless network from the carpark of my local
pub.
OK: so chances are it's some settings on either the router or the laptop, or
both. Both is usually the hardest to sort out!
An old Toshiba laptop can detect my home network ( although it
can't log in - some other mysterious problem) so I know the router is
broadcasting.
Detects but won't log in? This may imply that the router settings have
been set up to allow login only from certain machines, which is a sensible
security precaution. Check from the admin screens for the router:
1. whether it has MAC filtering in place
2. whether it is set to provide DHCP (i.e to provide IP addresses to
machines which ask for them)
3. Whether any WEP or WPA key is set.
4. Whether it is broadcasting an ESSID - if it doesn't, some systems won't
even acknowledge it's there unless told the ESSID explicitly.
If you want your wireless network reasonably secure (well, secure enough to
make it likely that anyone looking for a free unauthorised connection will
drive on down the road to find an easier one to get into!), the answers to
the questions should be yes,probably no,yes,no.
If you haven't touched the default the router came with, the answers are
probably no,yes,no,yes. In that case, if the laptop is also on default
WinXP settings (DHCP, no gateway set), you should be able to see the
network.
If the router is not using DHCP, then you need to make sure the laptop has a
suitable IP address and gateway set, or it won't access the network. If
this is the case, you may well have changed the router ID and network ID
away from the defaults as well (again part of making a network that little
bit more awkward to find for the intruder, and so less likely to be a
casual target): if your laptop is expecting to use 192.168.2.1 as a gateway
(the manufacturer's default setting IP address for Belkin routers) and
you've changed it, it won't find an available network.
The infuriating thing is that it worked a few days ago
before I tried to set up the card on the old laptop.
Hmmm. Does the card definitely still work on the old laptop (and in the pub
carpark), and how old is the laptop? I've known a (very) old Tosh to blow
a new wireless card completely after handling it correctly for a few days -
a bit of investigation indicated it had got something wrong during a
Windows reboot sequence and set a voltage incorrectly.
--
David Aldred
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: OT. Wireless network problem
- From: Tony Gillam
- Re: OT. Wireless network problem
- References:
- OT. Wireless network problem
- From: Tony Gillam
- OT. Wireless network problem
- Prev by Date: Re: 7 Days
- Next by Date: Re: 7 Days
- Previous by thread: Re: OT. Wireless network problem
- Next by thread: Re: OT. Wireless network problem
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
