wifi WEP Problem

thefuzzbox

Hello,

Am hoping for some help. My mate currently has a laptop set up as his that he can connect to the internet through without issue. He now (for his daughter) wants to connect the old desktop he had to the internet as well. Having once worked in IT for about 3 months (coding COBOL about 10 years ago), he obviously decided I was the best person to help him :-)

Anyway, I went round:
I connected his desktop to his router via ethernet cable, no problem.
I took round my belkin wireless adaptor I use at home and got acquiring network error message (despite entering the WEP key as directed, taken from the underside of his router - doing both lower/upper case, and ensuring antivirus was temporarily disabled.

Got fed up, so said I'd take his desktop back to mine. Purchased him a wireless G adaptor (Netgear) which came with an ADSL router too (was a discontinued price from Comet that worked out cheaper than the Belkin adaptor on it's own). Managed to connect his desktop to my home network wirelessly with the new adaptor without issue.

Back to his last night, still doesn't work (same Acquiring netwotk error). Network Diagnostics suggest that the credentials between adaptor and router aren't the same..leaving me thinking it's the WEP bit (he's got no recollection of ever changing his password, and has no paperwork from when he set the laptop up x years ago).

Brilliant, I think. I'll simply set up the new router for him, hence generating a new WEP key, get the desktop going, and then remap the laptop to look at the new wireless network. All going well, until I was prompted to enter the ISP email login/Password as part of the router setup exercise. Predictably, no paperwork and no recollection of what this might be. Get depressed (missing the football), so reconnect his old router so his laptop is fine (so his missus can carry on playing bingo).

So, I think I'm left with a question of how can I establish what WEP/WPA key is being used to connect the laptop to the router. If I can get this, I'm hoping his desktop/existing wireless network problem will go away. Is these something jazzy I can do with his laptop whereby I can find this out ?

Apologies for the rambling nature of this post.

sharkie

please do not take offence, but I found your post hard to understand.

Seen this: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wireless_key.html

Also is their mac filtering on his router?

gonzo127

i agree it is a bit hard to understand however what i beleive could be causing the problems is your using WEP - this is really not good, you need ot be looking at WPA at the very least and hopefully WPA2, and this could also be causing the problems, if you are using the WEP encription on the laptop but the router is default on WPA this will stop a connection so you need to make sure you are using the same encryption on both router and laptop

also what is the make of his old router? most have got default access such that netgears default to
admin - password
for the log on details

the other would be to contact his ISP and request them to post/email him his connection details then you can pop around when he has them and pop them into the new router

thefuzzbox

Thankyou both for your comments. I've also realised belatedly that this is covered in depth in the wireless sticky. Also, no offence taken in the slightest about my post being confusing.

Not sure how to let this thread die now, as I'll continue to work through the sticky.

Hammyman

thefuzzbox wrote: »

Back to his last night, still doesn't work (same Acquiring netwotk error). Network Diagnostics suggest that the credentials between adaptor and router aren't the same..leaving me thinking it's the WEP bit (he's got no recollection of ever changing his password, and has no paperwork from when he set the laptop up x years ago).

Brilliant, I think. I'll simply set up the new router for him, hence generating a new WEP key, get the desktop going, and then remap the laptop to look at the new wireless network. All going well, until I was prompted to enter the ISP email login/Password as part of the router setup exercise. Predictably, no paperwork and no recollection of what this might be. Get depressed (missing the football), so reconnect his old router so his laptop is fine (so his missus can carry on playing bingo).

So, I think I'm left with a question of how can I establish what WEP/WPA key is being used to connect the laptop to the router. If I can get this, I'm hoping his desktop/existing wireless network problem will go away. Is these something jazzy I can do with his laptop whereby I can find this out ?

Apologies for the rambling nature of this post.

My bet is that his router is on the same wifi channel as someone close by. I had a client who had a problem like that and couldn't connect to the wifi router in the same room. Turned out entire village was on Channel 11 which is a default for many routers along with 1 and 10. Changed channel, problem sorted.

Download InSSIDer and run it at your old mans. It'll show you what networks are being picked up and what channels they're on. Choose a clear one if possible.