"Limited or no connectivity" when using wireless USB adapter with WEP enabled on Dell Dimension 8400.

[MasterG]

I'm having trouble connecting to my network using a wireless USB adapter with WEP enabled. I'm using a Dell Dimension 8400 with Win XP pro w/ SP2. My wireless router is the Dlink DI-524. I tried using 2 wireless USB adapters, Netgear WG111 and Dlink DWL-G120.

When I disable WEP, both network adapters can connect to the wireless router and ping the router. The wireless USB adapter gets a IP from router. When I enable the WEP, I get the "Limited or no connectivity" message and I can't ping the router. The wireless USB adapter gets the automatic IP windows assigns when its can't get an IP from a DHCP server. I know my WEP key is correct. On the router, I can see the wireless usb adapters connect, but it seems as though it does not request a IP from the DHCP server. I can connect to the network through the ethernet lan port on the back of the computer. I've updated the bios on the 8400 and all drivers and firmware for the wireless USB adapters and the router. I have run all the windows updates. I've tried both the windows zero config and the propriety software to handle the encryption.

I tried both wireless USB adapters on a laptop using Win XP pro w/ SP2. Using the same drivers, both wireless USB adapters were able to connect to the laptop with WEP enabled using either windows zero config or the propriety software.

The USB ports do work because I have a USB printer installed. Also, the wireless USB network adapters always get autodetected when they are plugged in. Everythings works fine on the computer except for this one problem.

Solutions I've tried:
Formated hard drive and Clean install of the OS.
Updated Chipset Drivers.
WinsockFixXP.exe in case of TCP\IP corruption.
Cold Booting the Whole Configuration.
Using Static DHCP with Manually Configured IPs.

None of the solutions above allowed the wireless USB adapters to connect to the network with WEP enabled.

I'm truly stumped. Any help you all can give me would be greatly appreciated.

 

[amdskip]

You do know the difference between a WEP key and WEP pharse right? Just covering all bases.

 

[MasterG]

Hi amdskip,

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my thread.

I do know the difference between WEP and WEP key. The one time I was talking about the WEP key, I was stating that I used the correct WEP key because that would be the most obvious place where there could be an error. This problem seems so weird to me because when I don't enable the WEP on the router; the wireless USB adapters connect and get an IP. When I enable the IP, the wireless USB adapters do connect to the router. Then windows zero config just gets stuck on aquiring the network address till it ends in the "Limited or no connectivity" message and obtains that default IP when there is no IP from DHCP. Some how it seems like enabling WEP interfere's with DHCP, just on the new Dell Dimension 8400. As stated before, the wireless USB network cards work perfect with WEP enable on another computer with the same OS.

 

[fAlCoNNiAn]

have you tried:
-------------
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

 

[Green Man]

WinXP SP2 breaks WEP. You have to use WPA-SPK

edit: actually Q815485 breaks WEP, but it's part of SP2, and if it installs with SP2 you can't uninstall it. There may be a work around by disabling 802.1x authentication.