Issue with wireless adapters...

sHey everybody, I have an issue with two of my USB wireless adapters, hopefully someone can help. I have a NETGEAR Wireless router on the main pc in my house. I bought a WG111 NETGEAR Wireless Adapter (54Mbps) for a laptop stationed in a different room, installed the software and connected the device. Windows automatically recognized the adapter, and installed the remaining drivers. I opened the software for the adapter, selected my SSID Network name, gave it a passphrase, applied the settings, and poof, I was connected. I was pleased at how easy it had been, so I bought two more adapters (different brand, too expensive to get more than one netgear adapters) for two desktops in other rooms. Procedure was the same, installed the software that came with the adapters, plugged them in, and they were detected. The management software for these two new adapters is different, though, and ever since I got them I have had no connectivity. It detects my network, but is unable to connect. I’ve noticed that my NETGEAR software has the mode as Access Point, and the other (Zonet) software has it in station mode. If I change the Mode of my Zonet adapters to station, it doesn’t show my network, and instead asks for a MAC address. I don’t know much about wireless networking, and I might be skipping a step that wasn’t required for the NETGEAR adapter. I would rather get these two adapters to work, rather than getting two more NETGEAR adapters just because they’re easier to set up. I hope someone can help, and thank you very much for your time.

 

wireless adapter config

Its two weeks since you posted so you might already have it sorted, but here goes just in case...

Which wireless router have you got? On the Netgear DG834G, there is a setting under "wireless setup" (I think) called "access control ". If this is ticked, the router will only allow specific network cards (identified by their unique mac address) to connect. Its possible you ticked this since putting in details of your netgear adapter...

If it is ticked, try unticking it and see if your network adapters can connect.

(I'd recommend that you enter the specific mac addresses of your wireless network adapters on the router and turning access control back on, though, as this makes it that only your (and not your neighbour's!! ) adapters can use you connection.

Failing that, another reason for not connecting is the setting of network properties on the individual cards. On each pc, find the net adapter in Control Panel, right click and bring up properties, then select the "Internet Protocol (tcp/ip) entry and click properties. Make sure that on each, you have selected "Obtain ip address automatically ", or alternatively enter details as:

IP Address: 192.168.0.N (where N is a number between 2 and 255 and unique to that adapter: so for first adapter, choose say 2, then next one choose 3 and so on.

Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway 192.168.0.1

Preferred DNS server: 192.168.0.1

On the PC with the working adapter, bring up a dos prompt and type IPCONFIG to see what its settings are. If they vary wildly from the above, then maybe your setup is a little different from the norm, so you might have to use your imagination on this bit

If you have the "Obtain ip address auto" option ticked, make sure on the router management console, you have told it to provide ip addresses (dhcp option is ticked, probably under LAN setup or something like that)


hope that helps