[Techtalk] Wireless networking - OT

[Charlotte Oliver]

On Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 07:10:28AM -0600, Betty Johnson wrote:
> Turned on the router. Set up WEP. Now machines not picking up IP address 
> from router on wireless network. Change channel for SSID.
> 
> Now only 2 machines of 3 are picking up IP address from router and the 3rd 
> is picking up from another wireless network in the neighbourhood. I keep 
> telling it not to connect and it does. It even updated virus definitions 
> and this place does not have Internet yet.
> 
> What should I do now to get this Lan working? Change SSID again? I am 
> really tired of beating my head against a brick wall. Thanks to all 
> suggestions.

Ahh, the WEP problem.  Now if I can ever get my new Powerbook to use WEP
and be happy, I'll be happy...

But, that said:

Has each client been configured to use the same level of encryption
and the same SSID?  I'm guessing you've probably done this.

If you've done that and it's giving you problems, I would try putting in
the long ugly code for the SSID instead of the nice human-friendly
SSID.  I've had that be the problem before (on a Linksys card from a
Linksys router).

Also, I'd check on the software you're using for the clients - make sure
the software is the identical version recommended by the vendor (or are
you using the inbuilt XP wireless software?  If you are, you might want to try
the vendor supplied tools.).  I'd also check out firmware updates -
we've had some serious problems with the Broadcom chips that ship with a
lot of Dell and HP laptops.  My boyfriend's laptop would work with WEP
until our phone on the same frequency would ring, then he would have
trouble reconnecting after that.  We changed frequency and then we
changed the wireless card because it was just too much trouble and kept
giving us problems.

Hope that's helpful -- keep us posted!

Charlotte