Wireless Card Says "Connected" but Won't Connect!

I've been working on this one for the past few hours, and it's driving me MAD:

Windows 98 Second Edition
Trendnet wireless card
Microsoft wireless router

Here's what I'm looking at:

1) Router is properly configured and connected. Two other machines are connected to the router via wired connections successfully.
2) No security whatsoever, meaning no encryption...just until I can establish a wireless connection. Keeping it basic until I can figure out this problem.
3) The trouble computer is configured correctly. IP, DHCP, DNS, Gateway, and Submask settings are all correctly configured.
4) Drivers installed for the card.
5) Configuration utility for the card shows the card as CONNECTED, green light and strong connection.
6) Router configuration menu identifies the computer as successfully connected.

However, despite the green card and confirmed connection, as soon as I open Explorer, I get "Page Cannot be Displayed". WTC?! That doesn't make sense!

So how can the card AND the router show me as connected, but I still can't connect? I can't even ping the router!

Thats a weird one, connected but cant ping the router.

When you say the router shows you as connected does it tell you the right IP address for the wireless connection?

First steps I would say are to check you dont have a MAC address filter or IP address filter enabled.

If you could ping it, I would say the problem was with your IE configuration but since you cant ping it the problem obviously lies within the physical connection. Does you router have a setting to block all internal pings?

Try pinging another computer on you network.

See how that goes!

I think Nokia hit it on the head......you are not getting a workable IP from your router. Click on the icon in your system tray that shows you are connected and then go to the support tab and check the address you have been given. It should be something like 192.68.0.103 (100-199) and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

You might have to manually enter one, if all else fails.

If you are using internal static IP's and have the DHCP server enabled on the router that is what will happen.


It's worth it to check.

Yep, believe it or not, I've actually checked all that.

Router address is 192.168.2.1 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0. The card's configuration settings are set so that the primary DNS and gateway are 192.168.2.1.

The router does have DHCP enabled, and I've tried configuring the card with both the static IP of 192.168.2.6 (which is indeed free) and the automatic IP, so I have indeed tried that setting both ways. No difference.

So it's quite a quandry! I've checked the smaller, usually lesser-noticed settings...Channel is set to 6 on both router and card configuration...got the SSID right...no encryption...Preamble set to auto on the card config...all other minor settings set to auto...no IP or MAC filtering on the router...still no luck.

When you put in the static IP address did you also put in DNS addresses?

Yep, sure did. Put in the 192.168.2.1 address of the router for that.

?? but you still haven't said what the IP the box you are trying to connect has for an IP. It may be connecting to the router but on an IP that is not useable to connect to the net.

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I've tried configuring the card with both the static IP of 192.168.2.6 (which is indeed free) and the automatic IP

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Put in the 192.168.2.1 address of the router for that.

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I meant, did you put in your ISPs DNS? Avoid using the router for it. As odd as it sounds, although the router should push it through it may not. Also, I'm not sure how well Win98 supports wireless..

You might have a conflict with card not supporting router or the other way around. Open IE and type in the routers IP address, a security box will pop up and ask you 4 your user name and password. Type admin, admin to get in. If you get the security box then its not the card, check router to see if the IP of your ISP is poperly configured reset everything to default to see if this will make the router connect, reboot router and modem and computer for one minute and restart one at a time starting with the modem. if you dont get security box then it will be a card issue. Try installing the software that came with the router and see if that fixes the issue with that card. also check online to see if your card is supported by your router. Might also need to run updates for 98se to see if there is a patch for this problem.

Alot of times what happens is there is a router already. Say a cable modem or DSL router set for DHCP which gives you an IP and DNS settings for the ISP. All is well. Then someone adds a wireless router also set to DHCP and they don't set the Wireless router's getway correctly (which is the cable/DSL modem) and then to top that off the wireless router gives out duplicate IP addressing thus causing conflicts and a failure to ping or connect. Windoze 98 won't tell you that either. It's will just fail. The router has you connected to it's own network. Chances are your gatway to the internet is also 192.x.x.1 causing a conflict and a guess on my part.

//EDIT after reading your post again... Is the wireless router the SAME as your internet gateway?

Well, I finally managed to get XP reinstalled on it. After installing XP with SP2, the card worked fine and connected with no problem. Then the hard drive went bad, and it was all for not. Geez.

But anyway, if for nothing else than education:

Concerning the router/card compatability issue -- it's a Microsoft router. Can't get more generic than that. Could a card possibly not be compatable with an MS router?

The router was configured to a gateway of 172.xx.xx.xx.

Now some interesting points of consideration here:
(1) Up to three comptuers have been connected (via wired, not wireless in their case) to the router successfully. I have two of them running online via that router 24/7.
(2) Once XP SP2 was set up, I had no problems at all getting the wireless card to connect.

So...I see the pieces here, but I still can't seem to put the puzzle together. Does anyone see enough clues here to draw a possible conclusion?

always check the wep transmit default and use that code....

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Originally Posted by antidoteonme

always check the wep transmit default and use that code....

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I really hope this has been resolved in the 5+ years since the last post.... :)

goodnight...........thread closed :)