Posted on 12/27/2004 7:09:52 AM PST by COUNTrecount
I returned the Linksys and D-Link and will start from scratch. What do you recommend that I buy?
Don't forget any Firewall you may have.
Mine (Zone Alarm) blocked me until I turned it off.
Then I uninstalled it and took a fresh version and I "allowed" it to go to the router when prompted.
Just a quick comment. Not suggesting this applies to you, however, it may. Several folks at work got Dell laptops with built-in Wireless. A dozen or so worked wirelessly with no issues, 3 didn't(in the interum, we stuck pcmcia cards in there, but we needed the slots for other stuff). Couple of my Techs banged their heads for a few days(including dell tech support) and finally dropped one off in my office(I've been at it so long, I can fix anything :)). At any rate, what I discovered(in about 15 minutes) was that these couple machines had the WiFi antenna turned off from the factory. It was really that stupid. So stupid, no one checked it, heh.
You might just check to be sure that it's on if you haven't.
"Pick a brand and stick with it across the board..."
Good recommendation. I admit I make a living doing the opposite.
A bit stressful. But you do learn alot. Sometimes way more than you ever wanted to know.
IMHO, wireless networks are still not ready for prime time. Especially if you have broadband connection. Too many differing standards, security issues, still much slower than pure broadband and hardware is still on expensive side. I considered going wireless over the holidays but heard too many horror stories from others. So I upgraded my home network by adding another wired switch (uplinked from my Linksys router). I now have 7 computers and printers on this network and they are all superfast. It's still a bit of a hassle having cables all over the place but it's very reliable. I don't think my router has been turned off since sometime in 2003.
But I have a question about adding printers to our network. Will any new printer work correctly if it is connected to a wi-fi printserver? I'm looking at Epson, HP and Canon printers. Their advertising never says whether or not a printer is networkable (except for those few that come with built-in networking). We have two old HP printers that turned out to be non-networkable. I don't want to make the mistake of buying another printer that can't be used by everyone on our network.
Netgear.
Although you may consider the new Belkin Pre-N Router. It's gotten good reviews. Very wide reach.
Look at www.cnet.com
I've had fairly good luck with D-Link. I'm, as we "speak", putzing with daughter's ThinkPad (she lives across town from us) to figure out why it isn't talking properly to the wireless router (hers OR mine.......aarrgghhhh).
I don't think it's so much a problem with D-Link or Linksys or whomever (in most cases); I think Windows is a HUGE part of the problem myself.
Anywho...............pick up a D-Link DI-624 (probably the same beastie you had before) and get D-Link G650 wireless cards. BTW........you running XP?
Never mind......just saw you're running XP Pro. That's what I'm running here across the board as well. It's "iffy". When it works with the wireless goodies, it works. If it doesn't..........heaven help ya.
Yes, running XP.
First day of my A+ class, the instructor sent us out of the room and then flicked the little, black 115 volt switch you find on older computers. Simple and stupid and it took me a long time to discover it:-)
You need to give more details. It isn't enough just to say that something "doesn't work." Most, if not all, IT people are familiar with the user who has a problem with an application, usually a misconfiguration, then calls the helpdesk and complains that his "computer is broke." What is it, specifically, about your wireless setup that isn't doing what it's supposed do?
I have A and G wireless networks at the office connected to a T-1 and at home connected to DSL. Considering the cost of wiring the house the wireless gear was a bargain.
Sure, I'd prefer that the machines be hardwired but the wirless stuff works just fine.
Spybot virus ? Can you provide any info ?
Thanks
I also bought with the new IBM T42 a Bartlett Wireless 802.11 a/m/g m PCI hat came separetely and looks like it needs to be installed.
I'm not sure what cable you're talking about, but if it's physically connected and the error indicates it's not connected, you might have a bad cable. Or, the cable may need to be a different type (crossover as opposed to straight through) than what you've got.
I'm assuming that you're using some sort of broadband connection to acess the internet; DSL or cable modem. If you want to troubleshoot your problem, you need to do it one step at a time. First make sure you have connectivity to your ISP. Second, turn off all encryption protocols on the router and the wireless devices accessing the router (you'll want to restore these later). Third, turn off DHCP (on the LAN side; not the side that connects to the ISP) and assign static IP addresses to both the LAN side of your router and your wireless devices. The following are examples of valid static IP addresses:
Router, 10.13.1.1
First computer, 10.13.1.2
Second computer, 10.13.1.3
Third computer, and so on, anything in range of 10.13.1.254
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
DNS: 10.13.1.1
Default gateway: 10.13.1.1
Having done this, you should be able to "ping" each device from every other device. If this is successful, and there's connectivity between the router and the ISP, you should be able to access web sites from the wireless computers.
With static IPs on your computers, and DHCP turned off, they should not be able to pick up addresses from your neighbor's router. They should be able to communicate only with your router and each other, unless by some strange coincidence your neighbor is using the same IP range that you are.
I am having good luck with a Linksys wireless router/switch attached to my ComCast cable modem. I got a good deal on the 802.11b device. The g variant would give a higher through-put, but with 4Mb/sec from the cable, it seemed similar to putting a supercharger on a pinto. If g is the way you want to go, Maybe your neighborhood is looking to put Fiber to the Premisis (FTTP) as mine is, good on ya!
For setup (talking Linksys here), I suggest starting completely open, with a non default SSID, just to get devices talking to one another (let your XP clients roger up to the WAP). When all your devices are talking to the WAP, turn off SSID brodcast at the router (makes it harder, not impossible for wardrivers to see your WAP) Then limit the number of hosts that your access point will allow (wired or unwired). Take into account your regular home devices and any that you might want to add at a later date. Finally, go to the MAC address list in your wireless security tab, and poke in the Mac addresses of all the wireless devices you wish to allow on your network and turn on Mac Filtering.
Really finally, go through the documentation on both the WAP and your clients for setting up WEP. This is absolutly the final step as it will begin the process of encrypting traffic between the clients and the WAP. Get smart on this before turning it on. It will incur some overhead on your connection but keep the casual wardriver from seeing your system.
I say casual as the wardriving tools are getting better and WEP is less than optimal. If, at the end of all this, you want real security within your wireless network, look for a third party layer 2 security program that uses a client based agent and strong encryption to protect you system.
Hope this helps, feel free to hit me up again.
Merry Christmas,
Top sends
Gotta love those bios/cmos settings!
Merry Christmas
Top sends
It's only "possible" that the phones will interfere. They need to be in the same frequency range as the AP. If they do interfere then you can still use wireless but at a different frequency. 802.11a uses a different frequency.
I have wireless phones but I use 900mhz phones because I think they penetrate walls better than the higher frequencies. I think these 900mhz phones have been obsoleted by the FCC.
I am asuming that you can actually "see" and configure your Router/AP on the network. You need to hook up to it using a network patch cable in order to configure it. I also assume that your running Windows.
Step
1 Connect the cable modem. Wait for lights to go green.
2 Connect the Linksys. Connect a patch cable from the Linksys "WAN" port to the cable modem.
3 Connect a network patch cable between the T42's ethernet port and port 1-4 of the Linksys. Make sure the ethernet port green lights are on.
4 Start the T42. Right click "My Network Places" and make sure that the LAN device(s) is enabled. They should be labled.
5 Open a browser window and click "file" the click "open". Then type in 192.168.1.1 and click OK.
Then next thing you should see is the Linksys password window. Enter the default password from the user manual. The initial setup page will display the status of the Linksys WAN connection. Most cable companies will require the use of "Obtain an IP Automatically". Your setup may vary depending on the cable company but I bet that it's automatic. You may also need to use "MAC Address Cloning" This can be found in the setup pages and the user manual of the Linksys.
Once the Linksys is connecting to the Cable, you can then proceed to the wireless setup and some users have added usefull advice for you here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.