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Question for computer geeks

TURBO2GO

TURBO2GO

Illustrious Member
Joined
8 March 2006
Messages
16,594
Location
Boston
Guys I am having trouble with my home network I was wondering if anyone could help me.

I just realized my wireless network is unsecured (somehow reset itself). God knows how long my neighbors have been mooching.... I went into the router's page and selected WEP encryption and the hex key (64 bit) and everything are still there. They are also there on my wireless laptop, keys match. But when I choose encryption, I get "limited connectivity" and cannot connect.

My router is an Intellinet brand, the laptop is a windows 7 samsung. When I disable the encryption, strangely, instead of just "intellinet" appearing on my wireless options, I also see "intellinet 2". Then that connects and all is fine. As soon as I allow encryption, "intellinet 2" dissapears, only intellinet remains, I get the "limited connectivity"

Any ideas? Please explain in non-technical terms. As much as I know A/V, I am totally lost in this area.
 
Are you using any special network software, disable it? Use Windows's built-in network functionality instead.

You also have to make sure that both your wireless router and your laptop card are speaking the same encryption technology, e.g. WEP. Sometimes one or the other is newer or older, and one isn't aware of the latest.

I'm too lazy to look up whether that's the latest technology or not; it might be WPA2.
 
When I open my properties window for the wireless connection, I get two drop down menus. One is security type, the other is "encryption type". I don't know the difference. Under security type there is no WEP option at all. The options are:

No authentication (Open)
Shared
WPA2-personal
WPA-personal
WPA2-enterprise
WPA-enterprise
802.1x

I set this on "open"

Under encryption type I have:

None
WEP

I set it to none for things to work. If I click WEP I get a window for "network security key". I put it in, change the router to do WEP, and I get "limited connectivity".

I'm about to toss this thing and go get a linksys with some tech support. I'm not using any extra software that I know of... I don't see anything.
 
Last edited:
TURBO2GO said:
When I open my properties window for the wireless connection, I get two drop down menus. One is security type, the other is "encryption type". I don't know the difference. Under security type there is no WEP option at all. The options are:

No authentication (Open)
Shared
WPA2-personal
WPA-personal
WPA2-enterprise
WPA-enterprise
802.1x

I set this on "open"

Under encryption type I have:

None
WEP

I set it to none for things to work. If I click WEP I get a window for "network security key". I put it in, change the router to do WEP, and I get "limited connectivity".

I'm about to toss this thing and go get a linksys with some tech support. I'm not using any extra software that I know of... I don't see anything.
Click to expand...

WEP is pretty old and it looks like your Windows 7 laptop doesn't have WEP security. I would change it to WPA-personal on the laptop and the router should be the same also.
 
Hard wire into the router

Change the ssid of the router to make sure you're connecting to your device and not a neighbors. I would change to channel 11 if it were me. If you had an analyzer you could see what is least used, but most people use 9 or 6.

Under 'wep or none', select none, then there should be another tab for advanced or something like that, and there you should see WPA2(personal)there. Thats my guess anyway. If you do screenshots we can walk you through it.

Just FYI - default fios wep can be broken in under 1 second, custom wep can be broken in about 20 minutes. WPA2 is really what you want.
 
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Heya Turbo, I can break WEP in under 5 minutes, you don't want to use WEP if people are close enough to mooch. I'd recommend WPA2-personal as long as all your wireless clients support it (which they should if they've been manufactured within the past few years).

I know you're fairly close to me, if you run into problems, I can likely swing by and help you out... or trade you for an ISF calibration :).
 
alloutEVO said:
yeah wep can be cracked within seconds nowadays... go wpa2 and do not broadcast your ssid.... if you can its best to do a mac filter
Click to expand...

what allout says is true to minimize any possibility of your network being attacked, but not broadcasting SSID and maintaining a list of MAC addresses is inconvenient at best and depending on your clients, it may not allow you to manually enter in an SSID. Anybody who wants to hack you can just run inSSIDer and get your hidden SSID anyway. For most of us, WPA2 is fine.
 
Guys thanks for all the help. I tossed the router and installed a new Cisco/Linksys E2000 and was up and running with WPA2 in all of about 1 minute. I am AMAZED at how easy this router is to setup. I didn't have to tell it anything. I figured out my verizon password on its own, it made me a USB key I put into other computers and got them running with 2 clicks, it did the security on its own and gave me a password.

I mean COMPLETE plug and play. I've never seen one like this.

Robr I don't do the calibrations myself, otherwise I'd help you out. Thanks for the offer.
 
TURBO2GO said:
Guys thanks for all the help. I tossed the router and installed a new Cisco/Linksys E2000 and was up and running with WPA2 in all of about 1 minute. I am AMAZED at how easy this router is to setup. I didn't have to tell it anything. I figured out my verizon password on its own, it made me a USB key I put into other computers and got them running with 2 clicks, it did the security on its own and gave me a password.

I mean COMPLETE plug and play. I've never seen one like this.

Robr I don't do the calibrations myself, otherwise I'd help you out. Thanks for the offer.
Click to expand...

That's pretty awesome, though I don't understand how it could have figured out your Verizon password on its own. Glad your problem is solved and your neighbors will now have to go leech off of someone else :D.
 
what is the range of these wans?:redface:
 
docjohn said:
what is the range of these wans?:redface:
Click to expand...

depends on the router. buffalo makes one where it's massive. one guy i've read has a single one covering a 40,000 sq ft warehouse. others just plain suck (steveny has one of those - signal wouldn't reach his kitchen from 30' away with almost line of sight once he closed his wireless PC in a cabinet :)).
 
Lol.....maybe I'm better off having my pc's at home hard wired to the router as is..I don't use a laptop..
 
ahhh a dongle......who said computer guys were geeks......:tongue:
 
robr said:
That's pretty awesome, though I don't understand how it could have figured out your Verizon password on its own. Glad your problem is solved and your neighbors will now have to go leech off of someone else :D.
Click to expand...

Complete mystery to me... but obviously it did, somehow. It figured out whether it was cable or DSL, it figured out my username and password. That stuff must be on the PC somewhere. I mean it was like take it out, plug it into the wall, connect the jack, and hit 2 buttons and it was done.

I read some reviews and they said this thing is "super easy" but I didn't know it was going to be this easy. I didn't have to put in a password or look for the network on my other computers either. It said "put in the USB stick", I did, it made a program abd loaded it to the new computers and 20 seconds later it says "congradulations you are now online". It setup a guest network, only asking me for a guest password if I didn't like its suggestion.

I never did the windows "setup a new network" thing, NOTHING. I was dumbfounded. I said outloud "you gotta be kidding me" when it got up and running all on its own.
 
docjohn said:
Lol.....maybe I'm better off having my pc's at home hard wired to the router as is..I don't use a laptop..
Click to expand...

Hardwire is always more reliable and faster (and probably more secure as a general rule). So unless you need wireless, stick with the hardwire. But there are so many devices now that run on the house network from backup drives to printers to music devices and you won't always have a hardwire where you want to put these things.

Do you have a sonos Doc?

Just love this device we install it all the time. www.sonos.com It's all I use for music at my own house. Needed the network for this.
 
TURBO2GO said:
Complete mystery to me... but obviously it did, somehow. It figured out whether it was cable or DSL, it figured out my username and password. That stuff must be on the PC somewhere. I mean it was like take it out, plug it into the wall, connect the jack, and hit 2 buttons and it was done.

I read some reviews and they said this thing is "super easy" but I didn't know it was going to be this easy. I didn't have to put in a password or look for the network on my other computers either. It said "put in the USB stick", I did, it made a program abd loaded it to the new computers and 20 seconds later it says "congradulations you are now online". It setup a guest network, only asking me for a guest password if I didn't like its suggestion.

I never did the windows "setup a new network" thing, NOTHING. I was dumbfounded. I said outloud "you gotta be kidding me" when it got up and running all on its own.
Click to expand...

With stuff that works like this, no wonder I can't find a job :p
 

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