Wireless fun

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Soldato
Joined
2 Jun 2007
Posts
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Location
Mornington Crescent
My parents and brother have a belkin wireless router, and belkin usb dongles. These have never worked nicely with my brothers computer, but the parents insist on using them. Thankfully, I built my PC, and my PCI card works fine.

Anyhow, he managed to break his somehow, and they bought him a new one, and it doesn't seem to work. Sometimes it picks up the wireless network with very high signal strength, but most of the time it can't find any, and it can never connect.
Technically the wireless is unsecured, there isn't any WAP/WEP passwords, instead they opted for mac filtering, which seems to work fine. Anyhow, I stuck the mac for the new dongle into the router, but its still not connecting. Tried using me mums dongle and it worked fine, saw the network and connected, so the old one was duff, and the new one wasn't working.

Hpwever, the new one was a slightly newer revision. So, I removed the dongle, uninstalled all the software and drivers, and started again. Installed from the CD, stuck the dongle in, installed the drivers, and it appeared in the system tray. It doesn't see the router for long enough to connect. Whatsmore, plugging in my mum's dongle now doesn't work either.

Help!
 
What OS are you using - I have had many Belkins and they all work well (after some faffing around). Download the latest belkin drivers, that makes a huge difference.
 
Nick, I linked to the dongle in my first post.

Router
Dongle

Where would I find the router mode? This is the router info page, if it helps.

The PC is running XP, and I'll try downloading and running latest drivers.
 
Are these the little grey with lighter grey lids dongles? Because if they are, beware, there are 2 sets of drivers, one works, the other doesn't. Ive had this issue before. Make sure you remove all drivers and use only the ones on the disk that came with the dongle, dont download them from the web
 
Are you using belkins own software to connect to the network? If you are try switching to using Windows Wireless Zero Service.

Open Network Connections in Control Panel.
Right-click Wireless Network Connection, and then click Properties.
On the Wireless Networks tab, mak sure that the Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings is ticked.

Then go to to general tab and tick show icon in notification tray. Click on thge new wifi icon in the clock tray and see if you can access the network.

Also get WPA Security or WEP Security at least activated on your the router, as as it stands currently your wifi is open to anyone to connect to it.

If your still having connection problems try changing the wifi channel on the router.
 
Valo said:
Also get WPA Security or WEP Security at least activated on your the router, as as it stands currently your wifi is open to anyone to connect to it.
Click to expand...

Not so, he said he's using MAC address filtering, that means only permitted MAC addresses can connect, so unless you know of a way to 'spoof' a mac address from the permitted list, no-one else can get connected.
 
malcolm said:
Not so, he said he's using MAC address filtering, that means only permitted MAC addresses can connect, so unless you know of a way to 'spoof' a mac address from the permitted list, no-one else can get connected.
Click to expand...

My mistake! I read his post then looked at the image from the router and just saw no security;)
 
Skeeter said:
Are these the little grey with lighter grey lids dongles? Because if they are, beware, there are 2 sets of drivers, one works, the other doesn't. Ive had this issue before. Make sure you remove all drivers and use only the ones on the disk that came with the dongle, dont download them from the web
Click to expand...

Yes, thats the ones. I was originally using the ones from the older dongle, which were working. Then the new dongle (Same model, slightly newer revision) didn't work, though my Mum's dongle (Exactly the same as the broken one) was working. Uninstalled the drivers, reinstalled them from the CD. New dongle doesn't work, mum's dongle doesn't work. I'm currently downloading the drivers from the web anyway. Just to rule that out.

Valo said:
Are you using belkins own software to connect to the network? If you are try switching to using Windows Wireless Zero Service.
Click to expand...

Not tried using the belkin software, never have. Always been Wireless Zero.
Would it be worth trying to figure out how to use the belkin software?

Ben M said:
is it out of range?...
Click to expand...

Don't think so, since the old dongle worked fine until it was broken. And whenever the wireless network does appear for a couple of seconds with the new one, its usually got 4 bars of strength, sometimes 2.
 
First off, lose the MAC filtering until it is connected, maybe turn the other PCs off while it is off. Is DHCP enabled or are you using static addresses (that don't clash) ? I have a similar router & have seen what you describe. Restart the router after every change you make, they are a bit quirky like that.
I presume in Device Manager the "dongle" has no yellow bits ?
 
We're using DCHP, and I'd rather not turn things off. We have a rather tempramental HP Photosmart 2710 that causes problems if the router is turned off or restarted. Parents need it for work, but sometimes when the router is restarted, the printer doesn't show up on one of their computers (Its a wireless printer).

Anyhow, I have updates. Was looking at it again with my Dad, and we've got somewhere. With the old drivers installed, we plugged the new one in. It searched for drivers, found them on the CD and installed them. Saw the router, tried to connect and it just stopped on 'waiting for connection' but didn't actually do anything. Dad unplugged the dongle and plugged it back in, and it started flashing, and it got as far as 'Acquiring network address' before stopping. It wasn't sending or recieving packets, but it was still flashing.
Then it suddenly started recieving lots of packets, and it all worked. Internet sites loaded, but it was still not sending any packets, apparently.

So, restarted the PC, and it wouldn't speak to the router. Unplugged it and stuck it back in, and it connected to the router, but this time its stuck with limited or no connectivity.

Bloody thing ._.
 
malcolm said:
Not so, he said he's using MAC address filtering, that means only permitted MAC addresses can connect, so unless you know of a way to 'spoof' a mac address from the permitted list, no-one else can get connected.
Click to expand...

I still think he should use WEP/WPA. Anyone with half a clue about network sniffing and spoofing can easily get onto his WLAN. Can be done in 2 minutes.
 
While this is true, we live in a quiet town, on a quiet street, with a slow connection. Anyhow, he says he doesn't want to, and I don't live here most of the time, so I can't be bothered to argue :/
 
i've got the same dongle and it's always playing up. was fine when i first got it but now the belkin software will say that there is no device plugged in even though it shows in device manager ever so often.

using a different USB port usually sorts it out but sometimes just a restart of the software does it.
 
Just disabled the pci card in my PC, plugged in the dongle and pointed vista to the drivers on the CD. Got it workin gin less than a minute, so I don't think its a problem with the dongle.

Anyhow, we've decided that the computer was full of rubbish anyway, so I'm about to format it. All important stuff is backed up, so this should be nice and simple :)
 
Formatted the PC, installed XP with SP2 slipstreamed, not installed anything else, yet. Put the drivers on, plugged in the dongle, and its the same problem.

Its not the router, since I can connect with my PC using the dongle. Its not the dongle since I can connect using it. It can't be the PC since it doesn't work on a clean install.

So what can it be? x_x

Edit: Now my mums dongle won't even install on the PC, windows doesn't recognise it. CD with the drivers is there. Tomorrow I'm going to download the drivers from the belkin site, but I'm completely stumped :(
 
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