Quick Wireless Help needed!!!

pseudonym

Ok, I have to get the wireless networking up and running on my sisters computer before she leaves for school sometime tomorrow. I'm having a horrid time getting the thing to connect to the internet (It connects to the router fine)

It was set up on the router with cables for this past winter break, and I just now went and bought a linksys PCI wireless B adapter for her. The system is XP, so I installed it, pointed it to the drivers and it got it up and running. Decided to try and make it work on my secured network first, so I punched in the SSID, WEP, etc and it connects to the router, but it cannot connect to the internet, AIM, etc, but it did manage to get a work packet from FAH for some reason. Try reboot, running ipconfig, still no go. Decided to set the router back to default (SSID=linksys, no WEP), and again it connnects to the router, but again I cannot get it to connnect to the internet for some reason. I disabled the regular network adapter thinking that was causing the problem, but that also did not have any effect on it. the other strange thing is that the IP it is retrieving is 169.254.xxxxx or something like that, rather than the 192.168.1.xxx

Any ideas guys?? I'm about to shoot myself, wireless networks are the DEVIL

Thrax

Sounds to me that the network card is on its ****ed up linksys Ad-hoc loopback IP.

When it can't ACTUALLY connect to the router, it connects to 169.254 IP.. It's essentially connecting to itself? I really have no clue why it does that.

Don't use the linksys network config manager.. It doesn't work on XP. Just punch in WEP, SSID, and go. I had some... Funny problems on XP though, I did the same connect job probably about 60 times before it worked right, then never stopped working again. Works wonderfully!

Prepare for frustration.

If all else fails, hard-reset the router (If its a linksys router), hold the reset button in the back until the red LED on the WAN spot blinks, and then blinks again.

Reset your SSID and WEP on the router and then go from there.

What WAP?

pseudonym

Hmmm, thats strange. I've been frustrated doing this before, but I can't quite remember how I got it going (Prolly same way you did). The weird thing is that the router knows the computer is there, and has assigned it the correct IP, the computer just doesn't seem to know its there.

I am letting XP do the config stuff, and I was just about to disable that and give the linksys stuff a try. We'll try smacking the router around a bit.

pseudonym

Ok, well now things are really screwed. I can't even get the thing to connect on wires now. I uninstalled the Wireless adapter, went and plugged it back into the network, and now its giving the same problem (Giving the 169.254.xxx ip rather than the 192) Any ideas now? I'm to the point where I'm going to reinstall the OS and be done with it. Messing with the router seems to do nothing, and all my other computers are working. Any ideas at all?

primesuspect

FYI:

169.254 is the class B subnet that the IANA has given to "autoconfig" addresses. It is designed to allow computers to be on the same network when no DHCP server is present. Any modern networking device will, given no static IP or DHCP server, assign itself a 169.254.x.x address.

pseudonym

Ahhhhh. Ok, so its giving the device that address by itself because it can't find anything else to give it. Very interesting.

Just to make sure I wasn't crazy, I hooked one of my other computers up to the same equipment and network cable, and it works fine, so it is def something that got screwed on my sisters computer when I installed the Linksys stupid POS Wireless B card on my sisters stupid POS Compaq. I'm going upstairs now to beat up my dad for insisting on buying a computer from the store, rather than letting me build it. What is tech support doing for you now, idiot.......

Thrax

The linksys card is not stupid!

Compaq and winXP are though, the former much more than the latter, and the latter only sometimes.

Enverex

Silly idea, but it seems like the router and WAP are both trying to use the same IP address, thus killing each other, and as the router isn't up, the DHCP server wont be working (as it's on the router). Also make sure that the DHCP server is turned off on the WAP too.

pseudonym

Dropped the card in my other computer (It has to go wireless to anyways for my mom) and it works fine. This computer has 2000 though, so no real problems. Soooo, all this seems to stem from the Compaq. Prolly the XP home copy causing the problems in some way, because my dads lappy works just fine on this network (XP Pro). Guess its time to wipe that stupid Compaq clean. I'm going to try and rollback some drivers on it to see if I can at least get the onboard LAN back up and running.

Straight_Man

Or, see if the network connection is builtin on the Compaq, and disable same in BIOS if so, then try the wrieless card-- soem compaq's come with embedded NICs and the embedded saying it is not connected while the wireless card is trying to use same resources will do this... So will wrong drivers, or drivers for both NICs on XP at once.

John.

pseudonym

Ahhhh, thats a thought. Kill the onboard so that it forces it to use the wireless card. I'll have to give it a shot. I finally got it to work again when wired to the network, but I had to do a system restore. Least I got it up and running again.

Straight_Man

Yuppers, that is why one box cannot connect, others can.... Other than Norton Internst Security not letting the new NIC out, possibly, or another firewall doing same-- different MAC can do that....

John.

polarys425

i had problems getting internet on a laptop with built in wireless, that sounds like the exact same problem your talking about. the lappy also has XP Home btw.

after some cussin' and hair pullin' i finally got it to work by manually assigning it an IP. if you can get it to work that way, just be sure to assign it one high enough so that other computers wont get it via DHCP if that particular computer happens to be off. i assigned her laptop 192.168.0.10, since i dont have 9 other computers, that IP is always safe.

i can check the settings on it if you need'em.