Wireless issue

[warriorfan808]

I wasn't sure if this was a security concern, but it has me racking my brain trying to figure it out. A guy comes to me with his laptop and tells me he can't connecting to his wireless network. He has WEP enabled and SSID broadcast off. So I go in and enter in his WEP ID and SSID. I also notice that he has a static IP address set up in his TCP/IP settings for 192.168.1.x, so I change that to DHCP because I know his home network is using 192.168.0.x. I also noticed he has 1394 Connection disabled, so I reenable that. His workstation begins to work.

The thing is, there's still an X over his icon on the bottom right side of his screen. I start to browse the net and start to go to sites that I know he doesn't frequent, like this one. No problem what so ever. I was then thinking, maybe something to do with teh 1394, so I disable that. Well, his connection goes down and then back up. I go to the command console to check his IP and he was issued an IP address from the DHCP server on his router.

I graze the mouse clicker over the icon and it says, "Wireless Connection not connected, right click for details" I do this and then all of a sudden, the connection drops. It says to click connect to connect. I do this and then it sasy, "Not Connected" on the menu and the toggle button says, "Disconnect"

Any ideas? bad card?

BTW, it's been dropping and coming up this entire time and the x still remains.

[warriorfan808]

Hey guys, I fixed it. It must have entered in the WEP incorrectly. This time, I copied and pasted. So far, no problems. Just hope it stays that way. Funny how I had connectivity for over 10 minutes without having the correct settings though.

[phishphreek]

Just a FYI-

The 1394 Connection is firewire. You don't need that enabled to use wireless. If there is no firewire card on the PC, then you won't see that. (talking about other PCs since you already know there is one in the laptop) Well, unless the wireless card is the firewire... most I've seen are either USB/PCMCIA or integrated.

Also, if the machine has mutliple network cards (such as integrated ethernet port and wireless card) it is possible to have the red x in the bottom right corner multiple times. If you hover your mouse over the network connection with the x through it, it should have one of those "tool tip" show up that will tell you which interface it can't detect a connection for.

If those icons bug you, you can disable them in the properties for the interface. Or, simply disable the network interfaces in network properties if you are not using them.

[ZT3000]

In any troubleshooting scenario, the rule is start simple, test, then progress to more complicated.

In this case, it would mean, connect to wireless without SSID off and without WEP and with static IP. See how she runs, then add the layers as needed/desired.

The answers come much faster that way.





(you got it figured out anyways.)