Need some help here. What did I miss when setting up this wireless net?

[Harvey]

Tonight, I tried to set up a wireless net at my sister's house using a Belkin gateway/router, desktop NIC and PCMCIA NIC. Desktop is a Gateway P3 650 on Win98. Laptop is a HP (don't know the CPU or speed) running Win XP Pro.

My brother-in-law also uses the lappy at his work with a hardwire connection. I set up the router, and the Laptop immediatelhy recognized the router and worked. Then, I went to set up the desktop.

I thought the installation went according to plan. It came up, and showed decent signal strength, so it looked like it was talking to the router, but it wouldn't log onto the net. Uninstalled and re-installed the software for the NIC with the same results.

Other info -- The cable provider is Adelphia, but they're AOL'ers, and that's not going to change. No encrytion, yet. Waiting until I get the basic system working.

Did I miss something? Is AOL a particular problem?

Any help appreciated. TIA.

 

[Harvey]

Ba-da-bump. Pls help.

 

[amdskip]

I know less about wireless than you so other than that I'd be happy to try and help you, sorry

 

[skyking]

If the lappy surfs fine, then the problem is with the win98 machine, not adelphia or AOL. Can you see the laptop from the desktop, and vice versa?
Can you ping the WAP/router from the desktop?

 

[Kadarin]

Some random things to check for:

Is the desktop recognizing the correct access point (yours, and not your neighbor's?), and do you have the correct channel set?
Is the access point set to only allow connection from a single MAC address?
Is the access point set to require a password to connect?
If you're logged into the access point, do you show connections from both the laptop and the desktop?
Static ip or dhcp? Doublecheck this; make sure the desktop isn't configured with a static in the wrong subnet.

 

[Harvey]

Thanks for the reply. No, I can't see anything else from the desktop machine, but it shows good signal strength, so at least, the router's talking to it.

Another thing -- After I tried to complete the install on the desktop (thought I followed the instructions), the lappy no longer found the router, either, so I may have changed something else in the process.

I'm going over there, tomorrow afternoon. If I don't get any leads on the problem I'll probably start by uninstalling everything and starting the installation over and try to find whatever I missed in the installation instructions.

One more thing, if anyone knows about this, when you plug the PCMCIA modem into the lappy, the icon shows up as it should. After a little while, it appears to disconnect. That is, the icon in the system tray shows an X which goes away if you unplug and re-insert the modem.

I'm not a 'puter n00b, but I don't have a lot of experience with nets, especially wireless.

Thx again.

 

[JackMDS]

If possible connect the computer via a Wire (CAT5) to the Router to make sure that the Network settings are correctly done.

1. Disable on the Laptop Firewall, and or any other TCP/IP interceptors/blockers.
2. Put the Desktop in the same room with the Router.
3. Make sure that the NIC is configured to infrastructure mode (NOT Ad-Hoc).
4. Make sure that WEP is OFF on Wireless Client Drivers, and SSID is the same as the Router.
5. In the Router, Switch OFF WEP, MAC filtering or and other filter/blocker.

If you manage to make it work under these conditions you can try (one by one) switching on Firewall, Virus Blocker, WEP, MAC filter etc.

Link: Wireless Security for the Home User.

 

[Harvey]

JackMDS -- MUCH thanks! I don't know what part of all that info will solve the problem, but between your suggestions and the links, you gave me a wealth of resources to go after it.