Wireless Networking Woes!

[oshta]

My dads just bought a Evasham Quest A420plus and a netgear WAP, and told me to "make it work". And i cant!

Ive done all the WAP configuartion, pluging it into the pc direct, and doing all the stuff, then removed it, and pluged it into the switch with everything else.

When the PC came (today) it came up with "found new hardward" when i switched on the WLAN and failed to install the thing properbly.
- I messed about a lot trying to get that done, which i thing i have, although it wasnt made easy by not knowing what model/make the onboard wlan card was, in the end i just tryed one of the list, and it seams to work??
- NOw im just blundering though windows XP (MCE) and its wireless junk-ums. Totalty lost!

Anyone got any ideas? I have a feeling the WLAN on the laptop isnt right, any way of testing that? or reinstalling it better?



Daniel

[mart_haj86]

Did you install the network cards drivers before inserting the network card?

[oshta]

Its a built in network card, its all inside the laptop.


Ive just beeing looking at it again. When i fired it up this morning first thing it detected a wireless network (the one from the wap) displayed it in the list of avalable networks, and then conected to it when i asked it too. i thought bingo! BUt the as soon as i tryed to access the net via the wirless conection (pulled out the network cable) it came up with "limited or no conection", Had a look at the list, its still there, looked at the propertys of the conection, full signal strengh (the wap is 8ft away, direct line of sight!) then tryed again to access the internet, nothing, so i hit "repair network" or whatever, and from then on its back to where it was, deniying that theres any wirless network anywhere, even after a reboot.
- Ahhggg. This is why i spent a whole day dragging cat5 though the attic to all the other computers!


Daniel

[oshta]

OK, silly me! Ive worked out why i got "limited or not conecivty" (i think)
- I'd unpluged the WAP overnight, as the cable currently goes though my door, which i wanted to shut. DOH!!

[oshta]

However, i still cant get it play.
- Spent the whole morning reading practicalynetworked to no avail!
- I goes on about seting the wireless card to the sae channel as the WAP, but i see no way of doing this, although i can set the WAP to varous channels (left it on the defualt of #11) a cant see anywhere on the laptop to do this?


Daniel

[mart_haj86]

double click on the wireless network icon in the taskbar click the properties button, then click configure, then the advanced tab, and look under there for something relating to the channel number, (it varies on most network cards).

[oshta]

Ah wow it works!! Im now posting this totaly wire free from mthe laptop, which i have a-top my lap!
- God knows what ive done, but il keep you posted if it dies!


Daniel

[jamin]

Coool....... next time, rememer the SSID you set in the WAP and the WEP/WPA key (you did enable encryption didnt you). When setting up the clients, enter the SSID and then enter the wep or wpa encryption key. Once this is done it will lock on to the channel without having to tell it what channel the wap is on.

[oshta]

I never did anything to tell te laptop which channel it was on at all!
- And yes, im runing with WPA2-PSK, which a decent passkey, which is...

But yeah, wierd (not wired, soding laptop keyboard and dyslexia, pun intended..etc) i litterally didnt do anything i havnt done before. Just hit "refresh networks" one last time, before i was going to go to bed! Doh.


Daniel

[amdavies]

If you get any further problems, it might be worth checking for things causing interference.

[oshta]

OK, its gone again.
- My sister was just using it, and its died again, again, from nothing, its now totatly refusing to accnolage there any wireless at all, even 3inchs from the wap, anywhere in the house.
- What exactly do you mean by anything causing interference amdaves? I cant think of anything that changes at the times when it goes up or down.
- Also, whats it more likely to be, the laptop, or the wap? Becuase both being new, anf the only two wireless things i have, i cant narrow it down like i usally would.


Daniel

[oshta]

God this is stupid, you really understand why people hate wirless dont you! lol.
- I might get a pci wirless card a stick that in a pc, so i can atlease have a rough idea of while part is at fault! For £15 its worth it jsut for that, and it my well get used at some point anyway.

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/45622


Daniel

[oshta]

RIGHT... lets try and get this sorted once and for all!

For the last week the WAP>Laptop conection has been working, and not working, seamingly randomly.
- One day it will work, the next it wont, or it will start or stop working part way thought the day.
- When it "doesnt work" it just simply acts like there is no wirless at all, nothing comes up in the "chose a wireles network" box, and it just says its not connected.
- Then when it does work, its all fine, the conections in the box, it conects, and its away. It loses it if you walk out of signal, but them picks it up when you move back towards the wap and into the house.

This pc now has a (linksys pci) wifi card fitted to it, which was nicly picked up by XP, and then nicely picks up the netwrok in the "choose networks" listy.
- However, when you try to conect, it spends about 10seconds trying to conect "detectting netowrk typre" then is proudly states "windows is unable to conect to the selceted network, network may not be in range anymore, please refesh list"
- However, its still there in the list after i refresh, and its down as having full signal, which given the distance, isnt suprising! GRRRrrr (at this time, the laptop is "not working" eather)
- Hopefully soon the laptop will start working, which will prove that the wap is at that time working, and i can try to get this pc working.

Any one any ideas whats going on.

[timread]

Hey oshta, can you give us some more information on your setup?

What WLAN card is in the Evesham A420 Plus, and what driver are you using? It's just listed as a Wireless Mini-PCI b/g on the Evesham site, no suggestion of make/model etc.

Reason I ask is because some older wireless drivers don't support WPA, or have very flaky support for it.

Also, please post model & firmware version of your Netgear WAP (for the same reasons - older firmware sometimes has a very poor WPA implementation).

Fact that both wireless devices are having problems with connecting reliably to your Netgear suggests that it's the Netgear that is the problem.

[oshta]

I dont really know about the WLAN card in the laptop, thats all it says about it.
- Not quite sure about the drivers eather, for some reason it came not installed, and winXP couldnt find the right drivers for it, so i just picked some random ones off the winXP list.
- So that could be a area of problematicness.

The WAP is a netgear WG602 v3 and the firmware version is V1.0.6

The wifi card in this PC is a Linksys WMP54G, which is running on it defualt, self detected WinXP drivers.


Daniel

[herulach]

try doing it unencrypeted, at least then you know thats not the problem. If you can stand it id say get on the phone to evesham and see what card it is, that or pull the cover off the mini-pci slots on the laptop and have a look.

THen get the correct drivers installed, is it centrino? youll probably be able to determine from what chipset drivers you have in that case.

if it works unencrypted then thats obviously the issue. It may actually be worth checking the power settings on the laptop too, i know new dells knock the wireless card off on battery.