Wireless network problem

[Steve Machol]

I just set up a wireless router (Netgear WMB521) and got it working. Two of the PCs are still using an ethernet cable while the third one is using a D-Link PCI card (router and card are 802.11b).

Everything is working fine except for one thing. Although the D-Link PC has the full Internet connection, I can't get it to recognize the other PCs on the network, nor can those PCs access it. I ran the Home Networking Wizard on the D-Link PC but when it was done, not only did the local network not work, but it broke the Internet connection. Consequently I removed the bridge that was causing this problem and this restored the Internet.

Any advice on how to get the D-Link PC to be part of this local network? I have enabled file sharing and assigned it to the same workgroup, but its still not working.

[filburt1]

Make sure you don't have a firewall running on each machine.

To clarify, your setup is (broadband connection > router > (desktop 1/desktop 2/wireless)? More specifically, each computer is behind the NAT and has an IP similar to 192.168.x.x?

[Shining Arcanine]

Make sure that your firewalls allow fire and print sharing across your LAN.

[Steve Machol]

Yep, they were all in the 192.168.0.x IP range.

I think it may have been a firwewall setting. Once I fiddled with this the network showed up. Not immediately, but about 10 minutes after making the changes. Thanks!

[Mike Warner]

Hopefully this is something Microsoft will sort out soon as XP can be very difficult to get running properly with wireless networking if you have a firewall. The introduction of a decent firewall in SP2 should hopefully make it easier to setup. I am currently using Norton Firewall and it is really really difficult to get right.

[Shining Arcanine]

Yep, they were all in the 192.168.0.x IP range.

I think it may have been a firwewall setting. Once I fiddled with this the network showed up. Not immediately, but about 10 minutes after making the changes. Thanks!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you should reboot after making the changes as it will take Windows a while to find the other PCs on the network.

Hopefully this is something Microsoft will sort out soon as XP can be very difficult to get running properly with wireless networking if you have a firewall. The introduction of a decent firewall in SP2 should hopefully make it easier to setup. I am currently using Norton Firewall and it is really really difficult to get right.
I tried out SP2 and I can say that this is definately easier with Windows Firewall. My only issue with it was that RC1 didn't block pings from another PC on the network.

[filburt1]

Hopefully this is something Microsoft will sort out soon as XP can be very difficult to get running properly with wireless networking if you have a firewall. The introduction of a decent firewall in SP2 should hopefully make it easier to setup. I am currently using Norton Firewall and it is really really difficult to get right.
I've just completely given up on Windows File Sharing, anyway. It is insecure (at least for non-NT-based Windows), and so slow to transfer large amounts of data. What I do instead is run an FTP server locally, open the appropriate port, and make transferes that way. Much faster, much more reliable, and far easier to set up.

[Shining Arcanine]

I'm running a Windows XP environment at my home and it is fast and secure. ^_^

You might want to look into switching.

[Steve Machol]

I spoke too soon. As soon as I rebooted I lost all connections - Internet and local network. I disabled all firewalls yet I still can't get reconnected.

Is there a source available somewhere that provides a simple explanation of how to get a wireless connection working? I mistakenly assumed that Win XP would be more advanced in this regard but I was wrong.

[TheMusicMan]

Steve - I have four PC's all connected on wifi and all sharing the broadband internet connection to my home.

A mate asked me to set up a similar wifi network for his three machines and this all worked OK as well.

We both use the LinkSys Broadband router (WRT54GS) which works fine. Like youthough, I havent managed to get any network shares set up on my mates wifi, but I have on mine at home. Very strange...

[bahbah]

Make sure the TCP/IP Netbios helper service is running and/or run a repair on the connection.

And FWIW running any wireless connection is insecure.

[Steve Machol]

Make sure the TCP/IP Netbios helper service is running and/or run a repair on the connection.

And FWIW running any wireless connection is insecure.
How do you run the helper service? And I've already run repair on the connection.

[Shining Arcanine]

If you lost the internet, how are you on vBulletin.com?

[Steve Machol]

Hmmm...I thought I explained that. I have three PCs. Two of them are hooked up to the router via ethernet cables. They don't have a problem connecting.

The problem PC is my wife's new computer and I am trying to set it up prior to replacing her existingt one. It is using the wireless card and it is the one having this problem. The strange this is it will work for a while, but when I reboot, it stops working (with no changes being made). After the latest reboot I can't get either the Internet or local network connections working at all.

[bahbah]

Sorry if you have mentioned this already but is the router (capable ?) of distributing IPs ? or are you using static addressing ?

After a reboot Start > Run > type CMD > Enter > type IPCONFIG > enter

Has it retained or picked up a new IP from DHCP ?

[Steve Machol]

I don't know if the router is capable of that or not. All I know is that when I set it up the only way to get it to work was to manually assign 192.168.0.x IPs to the existing computers on my ethernet card. I did the same thing on the wireless card but as you've seen, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Ipconfig shows the IP info I entered for this wireless connection. And both the router and the other PCs on the network are setup to allow connections from that IP.

[Shining Arcanine]

Hmmm...I thought I explained that. I have three PCs. Two of them are hooked up to the router via ethernet cables. They don't have a problem connecting.

The problem PC is my wife's new computer and I am trying to set it up prior to replacing her existingt one. It is using the wireless card and it is the one having this problem. The strange this is it will work for a while, but when I reboot, it stops working (with no changes being made). After the latest reboot I can't get either the Internet or local network connections working at all.
Sounds like the connection strength is low, have you checked that?

[Steve Machol]

Yeah, I checked that. The signal strength was 'excellent'.

However I think I've got it now. What I did was disable the encryption and this allowed the wireless card to connect. I then reset the encryption to 64-bit this time (instread of 128-bit) and after entering the encryption keys all is working well. I've rebooted several times now and the connection holds. :)

[Shining Arcanine]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Currently, Windows XP's Wireless Zero Configuration is a pain to use with encryption... Hopefully SP2 will resolve that.

[ManagerJosh]

Hey Steve... out of curosity, but did you set them up to be in the same workgroup?

[Shining Arcanine]

He said he did that a while ago.

[Steve Machol]

It was definitely the 128-bit encryption causing this problem. It's working flawlessly with 64-bit.