Wireless Networking Problem

[Slacker]

I'm having some problems getting my new computer hooked up to my home's wireless network and I'm at the point of tearing my hair out. The computer is brand new, never connected to the internet before, so it's not a virus. I've got a Netgear wireless card that installed into a PCI slot and the landlord has a Netgear wireless router. No other computer in the house is having a problem connecting to said router. The wireless card was actually installed in my previous desktop and worked without a problem, as recently as last week. The router is detecting the computer but for some reason can't assign it an IP address. I've attempted to release and renew the IP on the desktop to no avail and have also tried forcing an IP refresh on the router, to no success. Four other computers (including the one I'm using to post this) are connected to this router at the moment with no problems.

Am I missing anything? Software on the router and card are up to date, box is running Windows XP Pro service pack 2, not patched past that yet due to the lack of internet connection. Help?

[Skgoa]

Just to make sure: are you trying to use dhcp?

[Slacker]

Yes. Just for shits and giggles, I tried to manually configure the IP and DNS myself to no avail, but the first several hours of attempts utilized DHCP before I gave up in disgust.

[Edi]

Netgear is your problem right there. Their equipment is shit for the most part and even when it does work it's just a bit less shitty.

First off: Configure the WLAN into the modem through a wired connection and set the encryption to WPA2-PSK/AES.

Second: Configure the WLAN profile into Windows manually and then connect that profile.

The reasons for this are that Netgear has fucked up WPA-PSK/TKIP in at least one series of their modems so that it simply does not work in Windows Vista or Windows 7 without some heavy duty command line voodoo to change the MTU values accepted by the WLAN card on the computer. Windows assumes MTU length 1500, which conforms to the old Ethernet standard, but not the slightly newer IEEE802.something, where the MTU length is 1492. Which is what Netgear uses.

The other problem is that Windows sometimes does not understand a properly configured WLAN profile correctly if it sniffs it out from the ether. It may interpret a mixed mode WLAN as being single mode and everything gets fucked up again. If you create the WLAN profile manually in Windows, this problem disappears, because Windows doesn't get to make any mistakes on its own initiative.

[ANGELUS]

Yes. Just for shits and giggles, I tried to manually configure the IP and DNS myself to no avail, but the first several hours of attempts utilized DHCP before I gave up in disgust.

when you do this are you sure you are setting the right subnet mask and default gateway? When you set the IP addres Windows will generate the default subnet mask for that address, but depending on the router settings that might not be the one that is in use.

I have a laptop running XP that from time to time won't get an IP address from my wireless router, so those times I set up one manually and let it running like that for a short while and then remove it and this time it'll get an IP address and the issue won't happen again for several months. I have no idea what is the cause, but that is the way I fix it.

So I would suggest you make sure your subnet mask and default gateway are right first when you set it up manually, and if it works then remove the static settings and see if it gets a DHCP address now.

Other things you might want to try are connecting the computer directly to the router with a LAN cable to see if it gets an IP address on wired. If it doesn't then it is not a problem with your wireless card.

Do you have the default windows firewall? some firewalls require to set the network as "trusted" to let you through.

You can go into the Device Manager and check if there's an issue with the card (from there you can disable it and enable it back to see if it works and even uninstall it and install it back).

You might also want to try another network management software different than the default one that comes with Windows.

[Slacker]

The reasons for this are that Netgear has fucked up WPA-PSK/TKIP in at least one series of their modems so that it simply does not work in Windows Vista or Windows 7 without some heavy duty command line voodoo to change the MTU values accepted by the WLAN card on the computer. Windows assumes MTU length 1500, which conforms to the old Ethernet standard, but not the slightly newer IEEE802.something, where the MTU length is 1492. Which is what Netgear uses.

The problem with that is that this is a WinXp box, as I said in the first post, and furthermore this combination of wireless card and router have worked together just fine for a year now. I'll be the first to admit Netgear's stuff isn't the greatest, but its always been really rather reliable for me.

I'm going to start fucking with this thing again shortly, I'll keep everyone posted.

[Slacker]

Got it working, I tried releasing and renewing first thing again and it worked on the first try. Who the hell knows why it worked today and didn't work last night, I'm not complaining as I download all the updates the box needed. Mods can close this thread now.