More Wireless Connection Help Needed

Wombat

I bought the Acer Travelmate 2410 (Wireless enabled) from Comet as per the Quick Grabbit heads up, but can't get the wireless connection to work with my router. Any help would be appreciated. I'm beginning to think that there's a fault with the laptop's wireless card, so would like some confirmation before I send it back to Comet. :eek:

My setup:

Main PC: Dell 3000 XP Pro SP2
ISP Connection: NTL Broadband and router.
Wireless Router: Netgear WGT624 108 Mbps.

Netgear connected to NTL router via Ethernet and to Dell via Ethernet.

Laptop: Acer Travelmate 2410 XP Pro
Wireless Network Adapter: Atheros AR5005G

The Dell connects to the Internet fine through the Netgear router.

The laptop connects to the Internet fine if connected to the Netgear via Ethernet cable.

If I try to connect the laptop to the Netgear wirelessly I get the following:

Under Network Connections: Wireless Network Connection with a red cross on it and saying "Wireless Connection Unavailable".

If I right click that connection and View Available Networks, I can "see" my Netgear router listed. If I try to connect to it it asks me for the password and then does nothing when I enter it (fails to connect).

I've checked the settings on both computers to make sure they match and was going to follow all the steps in the sticky about wireless networking at the top of this board, but it ran to 41 pages when I printed it off!!!!

Under Device Manager the Wireless Adapter is installed with no problems. I've uninstalled and reinstalled it several times to make sure.

Any advice greatly appreciated. Is it broke?

woo

Have you checked for the latest drivers on the Asus website?

Tallymanjohn

It sounds like you're using the wrong password. If your router is set to WPA it will be a (very) long key you need to enter, If it is WEP encryption then you may have a passkey (a recognisable password) but the laptop will be asking for the 10 digit hexadecimal password instead. You need to look at the security settings on your router to establish what type of security it is using - I'm afraid it's a case or 'read the manual'. if you're not too sure

woo

though if sometimes the wrong password has been entered it might say connected but have 'limited connectivity', yellow exclamation mark by the wireless symbal in your sys tray, so it may not be that.

albertross_2

copy and paste a wpa key from here into your router, then into the laptop, to make sure it matches..

https://www.grc.com/passwords

This is how to make the router fully secure:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=2471408&postcount=37

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=2471410&postcount=38

Wombat

Tallymanjohn wrote:

It sounds like you're using the wrong password. If your router is set to WPA it will be a (very) long key you need to enter, If it is WEP encryption then you may have a passkey (a recognisable password) but the laptop will be asking for the 10 digit hexadecimal password instead. You need to look at the security settings on your router to establish what type of security it is using - I'm afraid it's a case or 'read the manual'. if you're not too sure

No, definitely the right password. It's WEP at the moment as I don't have XP SP2 on the laptop yet. I'm inputting the 10 digit hex code into the laptop and......nothing.

Haven't tried updating the drivers yet, tho. Might be an idea. Thanks to both so far.

Wombat

albertross wrote:

copy and paste a wpa key from here into your router, then into the laptop, to make sure it matches..

www.grc.com/passwords

This is how to make the router fully secure:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=2471408&postcount=37

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=2471410&postcount=38

Sorry, albert, can only use WEP at the moment.

Just as an additional note, at some time I got a message saying something wasn't "associated", but I can't reproduce that message now.

woo

as a simple test for a few moments you could disable any security to ensure it will connect.
have you got mac address filtering switched on?

albertross_2

plug it into the router, and run https://www.windowsupdate.com then, before you catch something..

you can get wep keys from the same page, but they aren't as secure as wpa..

woo

if the laptop is brand new it should have SP2 preinstalled on it. mine does.

espresso

Are you entering the passphrase or the generated Key 1 into the laptop?




HTH