alexruiz
Platinum Member
I set up a wireless network a few weeks ago. So far it has been working fine, but sometimes I cannot connect. When I try to "diagnose" I find some terms that make no sense to me (MAC, DCHP, etc). While I consider myself quite capable for hardware and software issues, I am a total newbie for networking. What could be the problem?
Router:
D-Link DI-524, firmware v1.05, set to channel 3.
Comp 1:
Biostar M7NCD Pro (Nforce 2 ultra 400)
Athlon XP 2500+ Barton running at stock
Radeon 9600 128 MB, 512 MB DDR400 Buffalo CAS 2,5
Win XP Home SP1, firewall disabled. Norton personal firewall running instead. Win XP WPA addendum installed.
Belkin F5D7000 PCI wireless card (Broadcomm chipset). Not using default drivers
Comp 2:
eMachines M6805 laptop
eMachines-Arima motherboard W720-K8 (Shadow K8)
Mobile Athlon 64 3000+ (clawhammer 1.8 GHz, 1MB L2)
Mobility radeon 9600, 512 MB Samsung PC2700
Triple boot of Win ME, Win 2K SP4, Win XP AMD64 beta (had win XP home for a while instead of the 64 bits beta, but 2K proved to be superior to XP in my comparison). 2K being the most stable and less problematic.
Broadcomm wireless LAN 54 g. Drivers v 3.40.6 (hacked from HP's software pack. WPA support)
When I set up the router initially, I used win2K in my laptop. It asked me for MAC addres, which it cloned into the router (stilll don't know the meaning). The drivers, OS and hardware supported WPA so I enabled WPA-SPK. It worked and both computer connected and could browse. Network was functional.
I noticed however that after a few days the belkin card had such a hard time connecting and lost signal quite often. I upgraded the router firmware but the problems with the desktop (belkin card) didn't improve by much. The laptop, on the other hand usually never had problems connecting (it is closer to router, but it shouldn't matter). I decided to also try the HP drivers for broadcomm chips. It worked quite painlessly and the machine improved A LOT in signal strength, stability and easiness to connect.
Well, not everything is perfect. Despite the vat improvement, once in a while I have problems connecting as even thought the computer "sees" the network and the network "sees" the computer, we can't browse. Network status (windows icon in the tray bar) reports either 0 packets sent or received. A reboot usualy fixes it, but sometimes it won't connect in 5 attempts. It happens also more often with the belkin card.
I noticed some posts where there are suggestions to disable WPA and use MAC adress. This is what prompted my question. What is a MAC address? How can I use for security? How does it relate to DCHP? What do you think is causing my problems with connection.
Thanks for the help
Alex
Router:
D-Link DI-524, firmware v1.05, set to channel 3.
Comp 1:
Biostar M7NCD Pro (Nforce 2 ultra 400)
Athlon XP 2500+ Barton running at stock
Radeon 9600 128 MB, 512 MB DDR400 Buffalo CAS 2,5
Win XP Home SP1, firewall disabled. Norton personal firewall running instead. Win XP WPA addendum installed.
Belkin F5D7000 PCI wireless card (Broadcomm chipset). Not using default drivers
Comp 2:
eMachines M6805 laptop
eMachines-Arima motherboard W720-K8 (Shadow K8)
Mobile Athlon 64 3000+ (clawhammer 1.8 GHz, 1MB L2)
Mobility radeon 9600, 512 MB Samsung PC2700
Triple boot of Win ME, Win 2K SP4, Win XP AMD64 beta (had win XP home for a while instead of the 64 bits beta, but 2K proved to be superior to XP in my comparison). 2K being the most stable and less problematic.
Broadcomm wireless LAN 54 g. Drivers v 3.40.6 (hacked from HP's software pack. WPA support)
When I set up the router initially, I used win2K in my laptop. It asked me for MAC addres, which it cloned into the router (stilll don't know the meaning). The drivers, OS and hardware supported WPA so I enabled WPA-SPK. It worked and both computer connected and could browse. Network was functional.
I noticed however that after a few days the belkin card had such a hard time connecting and lost signal quite often. I upgraded the router firmware but the problems with the desktop (belkin card) didn't improve by much. The laptop, on the other hand usually never had problems connecting (it is closer to router, but it shouldn't matter). I decided to also try the HP drivers for broadcomm chips. It worked quite painlessly and the machine improved A LOT in signal strength, stability and easiness to connect.
Well, not everything is perfect. Despite the vat improvement, once in a while I have problems connecting as even thought the computer "sees" the network and the network "sees" the computer, we can't browse. Network status (windows icon in the tray bar) reports either 0 packets sent or received. A reboot usualy fixes it, but sometimes it won't connect in 5 attempts. It happens also more often with the belkin card.
I noticed some posts where there are suggestions to disable WPA and use MAC adress. This is what prompted my question. What is a MAC address? How can I use for security? How does it relate to DCHP? What do you think is causing my problems with connection.
Thanks for the help
Alex
