Linksys Wireless-G PCI Card Not Connecting

[GlassJoe]

Hello all. I just built a PC for my kids and cannot get my wireless NIC to hook up with the router. I have a Linksys WRT55AG router/access point/hub for my network. I currently have my main PC hard wired to the router. I also have a laptop connecting to it wirelessly via a wireless-g pc card and an Xbox 360 connecting to it via wireless-a. I've had the occasional hickup with this router dropping connections and had to go reset it. All in all though its been pretty stable - until now. I have spent two nights trying to get my wireless PCI card for my kids computer to connect to the router and have had zero luck! When I first installed the card I didn't follow the instructions exactly and installed the card first before starting the software installation process. When I finished the installation it didn't work so I figured it might have been because I installed the hardware before the software so I uninstallled the software, removed the card, and booted back up and installed the software again. It then prompted me to shut down and install the card so I did. Whe it booted back up I finished the software installation and tried to connect - no luck. I even rebooted a few times to see if something would reset but had no luck. I have repeated the installation process two more times but have hit a brick wall.

I am not very sharp on manipulating the router settings via the browser interface but i do know my way around the options. What exactly all of these settings do - I can't really say, but here again I have had no problems until now. I currently have 128-bit WEP encryption on both the A and G bands. On my kids PC I have set the profile up using the correct encryption and key/pass phrase. Unfortunately my version of the router doesn't have the quick link button on the face to automatically connect the two components up.

The only unique quality to the hardware setup on the new PC with the wireless PCI card is that the PCI slots are extended using a riser card. The case is a barebones kit from Asus (Pundit P1-PH1) and comes with a specially designed mobo and PCI slots. There is one PCI slot on the mobo but is only designed for the riser card to fit in which in turn gives you two slots. I don't think this should be an issue because the PCI card is recognized and all of the software installs correctly. One thing also I didn't mention is that the PCI card sees the available networks. As a matter of fact, it sees my neighbors networks too (not secured, shame on them!). With that said I believe the card is working. My best guess is there is something with the router that may need to be done but I'm no expert on networking so that may not be the case.

Sorry for the marathon post but I wanted to provide as much info as possible to better help you all to assess my issues. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

 

[Markbnj]

Well there are a couple of things you can check. First, does the PC recognize that it has a wireless card, and are the drivers functioning correctly. look at the system tray and see if you show a wireless connection in the "Not connected" state. Look in control panel -> system -> hardware -> device manager and make sure that the driver is listed and is shown as "functioning correctly."

If that all passes, double click the connection icon in the system tray and look to see if your wireless network's SSID is listed. If it is, highlight it and click connect. If the wireless router is using an encryption key you may need to enter that at this point. If it still fails to connect you should get a message, although it won't be very informative.

If it connects, but you still can't get to the net, look at the connection icon in the system tray. Does it say "acquiring network address?" The router may be set to only allow connections from your current number of clients, or the connections may be limited to existing clients by MAC address. Did you set it up yourself or did someone set it up for you? Make sure that the properties for the TCP/IP protocol in the wireless connection are set to "Obtain IP Address Automatically."

 

[EvanAdams]

via a wireless-g pc card and an Xbox 360 connecting to it via wireless-a.

So you are not trying to go pci to the xbox to the wireless right?

1st thing is 1st. Disable WEP on the router and try to connect w/o WEP. After you get it working w/o WEP atleast you will know it works. Try to connect to your neighbors unsecured network. Just eliminate WEP from the trouble shooting tree.

As above pst says, make sure the router can recieve a new connection. Do you need to add the MAC of the new card to the router's setup?

I have the same card. I had a simmilar problem and what I had to do was reboot my airport repeater. But that is not your problem. Have you rebooted the router? Have you reset your router? Does your router have it's original BIOS or have you flashed it? (my hope is answer is no. and dont flash it if you dont have to)

I assume when you say you've repeated the instalation process that you've hit a brick wall that this has been a clean install where you pull the card and install the software first?

 

[GlassJoe]

The Xbox 360 has its own wireless-a adapter that hooks onto the back of the console and it connects directly to the wireless-a band of the router. The PCI card is strictly for my kids PC and I want it to connect directly to the router wirelessly. That's a good idea about disabling WEP - I'll try that. As far as knowing if the router can receive a new connection I really don't know. My knowledge is limited in this area so I can't really answer that. I haven't made any changes to the routers setup besides enabling WEP and changing the time zone. I had no problems connecting with the Laptop wireless-g PC card or the Xbox 360. I have flashed the routers firmware a few months ago because the original firmware was unstable. I have the most current version installed. I have already power-cycled the router a few times and even reset it to the defaults by pressing the recessed button. This didn't change anything. Yes, when I say I repeated the process I did a clean install by the instructions a total of three times now and am still having the same problem.

When I get home this weekend I will try disabling WEP and see if that helps. Thanks for the help!

 

[EvanAdams]

Some routers require you to go into their setup menu and add in the MAC addreess of the wireless cards. If you have not had to do that with other machines you should be ok re: that question. AS LONG as you didn't add that stuff in when you were doing flashing etc... as that is something I would have done at that point and forgotten.

mods: shouldn't this get moved to networking forum

 

[GlassJoe]

Ok, I disabled the WEP and the problem persisted. I have never fooled with MAC addresses before, so I did a search in the troubleshooting section of WinXP and found the command line to enter into the DOS window. It gave me the MAC and I entered it into the router config and Walla! Thank you guys for the help! It's odd that I had to manually enter the MAC address because every other device has detected my network easily and the firmware upgrade was done months ago. Oh well, it works and I learned something new. Thanks again!

 

[Markbnj]

Good work! Glad you figured it out. If you didn't have to enter MAC addresses for the other clients then you shouldn't have had to enter it for this one, however, one possibility is that whoever set it up gave it a range of only one or two IP addresses to assign from. By filling out the MAC data you may have assigned a new address and extended that space. Anyway, at least you're connected.