cant connect wirelessly

chezzer1234

trcooke wrote: »

Click on Setup then check what it says under "Security Options" for the encryption type and "Network Key" for your password.

right WPA-PSK is selected and my network key is entered

chezzer1234

loaner wrote: »

Do you have an old laptop/wireless adapter that doesn't support wpa?

absolutely no idea have been connected wirelessly before tho

chezzer1234

just changed it to WEP and its worked!!
Is this ok to do?

trcooke

That is fine to do. However I would recommend one more step for you to take to ensure that your wireless network is secure.

I'm about to describe to you how to set up an "access control list" on your Sky Router. What this means is that you are going to set up a list of physical PC's that are allowed to connect to your wireless network. Ok, here we go:

On your laptop, open up the Command Prompt. Do this by pressing Start+r to bring up the Run dialog and then type "cmd" and press enter. This will bring up a black window where you'll be presented with a flashing cursor. Type "ipconfig" and press enter. What you're looking for here is the MAC address or Physical Address and will be of the form 00:05:3e:a4:45:b7. If you can't see it then try "ipconfig /all" instead. Make a note of this number and repeat on all PC's you want to connect wirelessly to your network.

Now log into your Sky Router (admin, sky) and click on Setup then on "SETUP ACCESS LIST". Check the box that says "Turn Access Control On". If your laptop is on and in range then you may see it listed in the "Available Wireless Stations" section, in which case you can simply check the box and click "Add" (repeat for all PC addresses). If you don't see it in this list then add it manually in the "Add New Station Manually" section. The Device Name is just a name so you recognise it, you can put anything here, "chezzerLaptop" or something. Then in the "MAC Address" field enter the number you made a note of earlier. Click "Add". Don't forget to click "Apply".

That's it, done.

I suggest this because WEP is a relatively weak encryption and somebody with the right tools and the will can break it within minutes. Adding this access control list just adds another level of protection that needs to be broken first. It's by no means unbreakable but it does make your wireless network harder to break than your neighbour's.

As a last recommendation, change the password on your Router to something other than the default.

Hope that helps.

espresso

chezzer1234 wrote: »

just changed it to WEP and its worked!!
Is this ok to do?

No WEP was effectively replaced by WPA/WPA2 several years ago because WEP was shown to be insecure!

Set up your WPA again by getting a long random passphrase from here (copy & paste the string to a notepad file, so that you can paste it in when requested) during connection of any PC's that to wish to connect to your router.

espresso

trcooke wrote: »

That is fine to do.

Not good advice!

However I would recommend one more step for you to take to ensure that your wireless network is secure.

The following is not worth doing!

I'm about to describe to you how to set up an "access control list" on your Sky Router. What this means is that you are going to set up a list of physical PC's that are allowed to connect to your wireless network. Ok, here we go:

On your laptop, open up the Command Prompt. Do this by pressing Start+r to bring up the Run dialog and then type "cmd" and press enter. This will bring up a black window where you'll be presented with a flashing cursor. Type "ipconfig" and press enter. What you're looking for here is the MAC address or Physical Address and will be of the form 00:05:3e:a4:45:b7. If you can't see it then try "ipconfig /all" instead. Make a note of this number and repeat on all PC's you want to connect wirelessly to your network.

Now log into your Sky Router (admin, sky) and click on Setup then on "SETUP ACCESS LIST". Check the box that says "Turn Access Control On". If your laptop is on and in range then you may see it listed in the "Available Wireless Stations" section, in which case you can simply check the box and click "Add" (repeat for all PC addresses). If you don't see it in this list then add it manually in the "Add New Station Manually" section. The Device Name is just a name so you recognise it, you can put anything here, "chezzerLaptop" or something. Then in the "MAC Address" field enter the number you made a note of earlier. Click "Add". Don't forget to click "Apply".

That's it, done.

Complete waste of time and effort.

I suggest this because WEP is a relatively weak encryption and somebody with the right tools and the will can break it within minutes. Adding this access control list just adds another level of protection that needs to be broken first. It's by no means unbreakable but it does make your wireless network harder to break than your neighbour's.

Anyone who has sniffed enough data to recover the WEP key, already knows the MAC addresses being used to connect to the router, as they are transmitted in each packet of data and can therefore easily be spoofed by the hacker!

As a last recommendation, change the password on your Router to something other than the default.

Now that's a good idea.

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