Wireless Network Nightmare

jamtart6

Hey folks, any help would be much appreciated!

The parents have an old XP computer that they are trying to use a Belkin wireless dongle with.

The 2 laptops in the house connect fine through their internal wireless connections.

The old desktop computer (Vista) which has now moved out to my new house used to work perfectly with the belkin wireless dongle.

They have put the dongle in the XP computer, re-installed from the CD and after many tries I finally got the computer to connect to the wireless network :THurrah you may think?

It states that it is connected, good signal strength etc. yet NONE of the browsers I have loaded on that computer will load. I get the "Detect Network settings" page.

Have I missed something? i thought broadband would have been automatically connected ?

Any help much appreciated :A


{On another note...just got charged £24 by BT for going over the 15Gb download limit......how could I have gone over the limit?? What would be causing something so data intensive?)

trebor21

First think, BT broadband is a rip off! Change it!
Secondly make sure wireless is protected to insure neighbours arent piggy backing onto your broadband and downloading through it!

Youtube, iplayer, music all eat bandwidth quickly!

jamtart6

Yep they are going to change to O2 I think. Hmm wireless isn't protected, but its more likely my daily iplayer fixes have caused the problem. Thanks for that info

Any advice on the Belkin issue?

trebor21

Do you have a wireless hub/ modem, or is the modem connected to a pc and shared from there?

jamtart6

How is it a mistake to install the software that came with the dongle??

There is a BT Wireless hub which is not connected to the computer

Donnie

Go to Start and Control Panel
Click on Administrative Tools and Services
In the Services box scroll down the list of Services (Local) until you find the one labelled Wireless Zero Configuration and double click it.
In the Wireless Zero Configuration Properties (Local Computer) box change the Startup type to Automatic
Click on Start and once the service has started click on OK
Now find the service labelled WLAN AutoConfig and double click on it
In the WLAN AutoConfig Properties (Local Computer) box change the Startup type to Automatic
Click on Start and once the service has started click on OK
Go to File and Exit to close the Services window

Donnie

jamtart6 wrote: »

How is it a mistake to install the software that came with the dongle??

There is a BT Wireless hub which is not connected to the computer

Are you arguing with me? :mad: WZC
Further instruction.

jamtart6

LOL!! No I am not arguing!! I just thought it was a funny thing to say! I'll see if this works! Much appreciated

GunJack

jt - what Donnie, I believe, was trying to say, is when installing a new bit of hw, ONLY let windows install the driver, not all the other !!!! that comes on the installation disks with said hw.

For example, say you got a new wireless adapter, the way to install it would be:-

1. plug it into USB port
2. let Windows detect it and try to install it
3. insert the cd at the appropriate prompt in the NEw Hardware wizard.
4. let W install the drivers.
5. Bingo !! your new hw is installed and working, without all the other carpy "utilities" the hw vendor has added to the driver disk, which would have installed itself on your pc if you had just popped it into your cd drive and let it autorun

jamtart6

The instructions didn't work, there was no WLAN AutoConfig option. The computer only has service pack 1 though, but I don't have a net connection to download it there.

Any other ideas? Next stop is a cable up the stairs

COIAHLGW

jamtart6 wrote: »

The instructions didn't work, there was no WLAN AutoConfig option. The computer only has service pack 1 though, but I don't have a net connection to download it there.

Any other ideas? Next stop is a cable up the stairs

That would well be the issue if your wireless network uses WPA2 encryption. This was only enabled for Windows XP in Service Pack 2 after you install the KB917021 patch, or you could go straight to Service Pack 3. The wireless adapter is new enough to support WPA2 as you said it worked in a different machine.

If you just reinstalled that computer using the restore disk to Service Pack 1, then hopefully you can just update it to Service Pack 3 and it should not cause too many issues. You'd want to make sure your computer has at least 512Mb of RAM though.

However, as you have found - this will involve connecting the computer to a wired network first so it could be downloaded. If you want to download SP3 to one of the working laptops first and then transfer the file to a USB stick or CD - Google the term Microsoft Windows XP SP3 network to find the link (it won't let me post the official link as I'm a new user)