Rdmarsiii Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Ok, weve had this wireless router for two months. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt. I always have a signal, but i never have internet. I get a 100% connection, if that helps. But I cant get online. I The router is a Linksys BEFW11S4. Its really getting on my nerves. Anyone know how to fix this? Thanks, David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Is it a combo wireless base station and cable router? You need to be sure your router is set up to give IP addresses and such to your computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jephdood Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 I'm assuming running hard-wired to the router works okay? Just the wireless that isn't working right? Run 'ipconfig' from a DOS window and see if you can ping the default gateway listed (which is your router's IP-- probably 192.168.1.1) and also make sure you are getting an IP from the router. It'll be 192.168.1.x most likely. If all that looks good, open a browser and get into the router config to see if the router itself is getting an IP from your provider. Open IE and go to the default gateway IP (again, probably 192.168.1.1). I think on the Linksys it's on the "Status" tab. It'll show either "WAN address" or "Internet address" depending on your firmware version. If it's zeros, try a "DHCP renew" on the bottom of that page. If that doesn't work, try changing your wireless channel to 11 as cordless phones and other wireless devices can really interfere in the middle channels. If your router DOES have an IP, I've seen this before with users on Comcast anyway.. try upgrading the firmware on your router to ver. 1.5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rdmarsiii Posted May 28, 2004 Author Share Posted May 28, 2004 It still doesnt work... Its my laptop im trying to get online with. Yes, there is a cable running from the router to this computer. I did everything you said, and everything looks fine. Im on channel 11. I upgraded the firmware last night. That fixed the internet on this, so now I can get online with this computer. Before, I couldnt get online with this thing. When I could, it would only last for about two minutes. Now I can get online with this computer, but the wireless still doesnt work. Now what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burtlively Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 i'm no expert by any means, but i do have a few thoughts on this subject as i have had similiar problems in the past. first off i believe your problem is your cable company. the response from charter cable was my signal was extremely low. they had someone come out and "turn it up". whatever that means. i found myself having to reset my modem and router continuously (at least twice per day) until they came to my house. i would unplug all connections including power connections, wait about one minute, plug everything back in starting with my wireless router, and cross my fingers to in hope that the reset would take. the resets worked for the first ten or twelve times, then that stopped working. once again my thoughts would be your cable company needs to help you with this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 I encountered the same problem recently. My wired connection worked fine, but my wireless would not, despite good signal strength. I suspect the problem is actually with any Microsoft updates you may have installed on your PC. Recent security patches have mucked up several wireless cards' ability to pull an IP address from the router, preventing it from communicating over TCP/IP (even though you have a wireless signal). As suggested, from a command prompt, type "ipconfig" and see what IP address your PC has. If it is 169.x.x.x, then that's a default IP that Windows assigns when it can't obtain an IP address from the router. That means DHCP isn't working (also, you won't see any listing for DNS servers or default gateway when you do the "ipconfig" command). And this is very possibly caused by the Microsoft Hot Fixes. I cured mine by reloading Windows, as it was a brand new machine with nothing to lose by reformating the disk. In your case, you may have to contact Micro$oft to find out which Hot Fix(s) to remove. You may also contact your wireless card manufacturer. Mine is a Linksys, and they provided me the information I recapped above. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rdmarsiii Posted May 28, 2004 Author Share Posted May 28, 2004 I would love to put XP Pro on this thing, but since its not my computer, its not my choice. I was talking with a linksys representative last night, but this comp is so screwy it kept cutting our conversation off. It would give me so much pleasure seeing this POS drop from a ten story building. I'll give SBC Yahoo a call. Any more suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 1: Do you have the router plugged into a DSL modem or cable modem? 2: Do you have to use software from your provider to start the connection to the internet? 3: If yes to the above (#2), check the settings on teh router to see if it can be set to always on, or to never time out your connection. We have a Netgear router that we got for our house, but the original DSL modem had software from our provider (Alltel) that was still a dial on demand type of thing. Once I set my router to alway be on, I could stop using Alltel's software. Now all of the PCs in the house just have the internet settings to DHCP, and they grab the address from the router. The router gets an ip from the DSL modem, and away we go. It stays up for weeks at a time. At our house we have Win98, two with Win2K and two with XP Pro. They all work just fine. One of the Win2K machines is using wireless. If the laptop has ME on it, there are incredible issues with getting some of the cards to work. We put over 300 desktops and laptops on our wireless network at school last fall, and we have seen them all. To be honest, the Macs were the easiest, but some of the Windows PCs were very easy as well. Make sure you have downloaded the newest drivers for the wireless card in the laptop. Marvel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j-malotky Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 For all you computer novices who run wireless, here is a few tips that you should do. DO NOT JUST TAKE IT OUT OF THE BOX AND RUN IT!!!!! 1) Change the admin password on the box. I know some hackers who love to hit boxes for free internet access. When they find one with the default password, sometimes they are kind enough to screw up the config making the box unusable, they then set the password to ensure your box is unusable. 2) Turn on WEP. Even though WEP is easy to hack, you should turn it on and use it. If you get pegged for any unauthorized illegal activity, you can prove you were at least trying to keep unauthorized activity off your system. Wireless is great, I use it. But on mine I use WEP, have it on its own Firewall DMZ, and use a AES256 encryption with PFS between my clients and Firewall. That way if somebody sits in my front yard with a sniffer and breaks my WEP, all they get is unusable encrypted packets. JM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted May 29, 2004 Share Posted May 29, 2004 Of course not everyone has the time or knowhow to do those things, so the best 1st line of defense is set your wireless base station so it does not broadcast your wireless SSID, then change your SSID to something besides the default. j-malotky I'm curious why you think WEP is "easy" to hack, easy compared to what? The types of attacks that WEP is succeptible to (see here for those interested: http://www.isaac.cs.berkeley.edu/isaac/wep-faq.html) are still beyond the casual hacker, probably beyond the skills of anyone who'd be interested in any traffic going around my network, to be sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted May 29, 2004 Share Posted May 29, 2004 We have some procedures that we go through at the college where I work. We use WEP, 128 bit, which has required some students to get newer cards. Even after setting up the WEP key on their computers, they cannot get on our network until we enter in the MAC address of their card. It has to match thier username as well. It is a pain, but we feel it is worth it. The student wireless network is on a separate vlan, to keep traffic off the staff/faculty side of things. Students still have access to a server with storage for them, that is backed up nightly. That storage is automatically mapped when they log onto any of the lab computers. File open and save on all lab computers atomatically goes to their personal storage space on the server. The C: drive on all lab computers is hidden from the students. A good friend of mine goes war driving, and has close to a thousand access points that he has logged. It is unbelievable how many businesses have no security on their wireless. It isn't hard to set up WEP and change the SSID on a wireless network at home. The materials that come with the hardware are not hard to understand. Marvel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsplittor Posted May 29, 2004 Share Posted May 29, 2004 Just wondering what type of wireless card are you using with the laptop? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rdmarsiii Posted May 29, 2004 Author Share Posted May 29, 2004 Im using a Linksys WUS54G wireless adaptor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.4knee Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 OK when you are runnig wireless can you ping the router? To do this click "Start", then click "Run" and a box should come up in that box type "CMD". Next you should see a command or dos window come up. type "CD\" then type "ping and your routers IP address" for example "ping 192.168.0.1"you should get a response from you router if you connect or a time out error fi yoiu don't. EDIT: Also try connecting to your router using your browser by typing in the IP of you router as the URL if you connect you should see your maintenance/configuration screen come up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rdmarsiii Posted June 2, 2004 Author Share Posted June 2, 2004 Yep, I can ping it and I can go to the configuration. But the internet still isnt working on the wireless part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.4knee Posted June 2, 2004 Share Posted June 2, 2004 Then it looks like your router has a problem on the wireless path. If you can get to the internet via your wired path you router is communicating through your modem to your ISP and the fact you get an IP and can ping you router and access the config screen from your browser show your wireless NIC in your PC can communicate with the router over a TCP/IP connection I know you have flashed the router once already but try it again using your wired connection. I had a SMC router once that took about 4 flashes before it finally worked properly. If that does not work you may want to take it back for another one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j-malotky Posted June 3, 2004 Share Posted June 3, 2004 Damon I don't want to post how to crack a WEP encryption publically, but it can be done rather fast if you know what you are looking for. I was comparing it to an IPSEC using 3des or and AES encription where the key change regularly. Now that is hard to crack. If you want to know more, we can talk about it on the way down to Indy in two weeks. JM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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