Wireless Network

[Ben Tusting]

I am running a wireless network with an apple base station and 3 airport express.We have 3 apple macs, 1 pc (mine) and a pc laptop. The pc laptop says the wireless network is to far out of range but it says there is full signal on the available networks. Why wont this connect?
My pc connects fine via wireless.
Do i need to update the drivers on the laptop's network card.
Somebody please help.

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

I need some more info, what OS you use on the laptop, what kind of laptop you have, brand, type etc and what accesspoint you use, is it B / G / N?

So please give me some more info and i will help you as much as i can.

[Ben Tusting]

Windows xp professional,toshiba tecra laptop.apple airport base station (802.11n/802.11b/g compatible)
Is this any use

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Did you follow the next steps?

Try to change the channel on the Airport base station from Automatic to a channel between 1 and 11.




To configure the PC for the network:

1. Boot up the PC and then right-click the wireless (adapter in my case) software on the menu bar.
2. Select Refresh or Find Available Networks then select the SSID you want to join.
3. Once the "Current Network Info" appears, click "More Settings."
4. Under "More Settings" in the wireless LAN configuration window:
5. • for TX Rate choose "Auto"
6. • for SSID choose "(your preferred network)"
7. • for Network Type choose "Infrastructure"
8. • for Encryption choose "WEP"
9. • for Authentication Mode choose "Shared Key"
10. Then click the "Apply" button
11. Click "WEP encryption key setting"
12. Enter "WEP" password, which is a 128 Hex Key in the WEP Encryption key setting on just one line. There may be half a dozen lines, but only one has to have the passkey, which is described in the section below.
13. After you get the Password/Hexkey from the Mac (see below) and have it entered on the PC, then UNCHECK the box "The key is provided via 802.1x authentication".
14. Then click Apply.

If you have the new 802.11n Airport Extreme it is possible to be in the wrong mode, in other words running in 802.11n or 802.11a and your Windows laptop can only access 802.11b or 802.11g networks. Check the wireless radio mode of the Airport base station.

Though Windows XP SP2 supports WPA and WPA2 encryption not all wireless hardware does, especially if it is older hardware. Check that your hardware actually supports the use of WPA or WPA2.

Also check:
Ensure that the Enable IEEE 802.1x authentication for this network check box is not checked.

If you are using AEBS firmware 5.1.1, 5.2 or 5.3. All other versions of the firmware allow Open authentication, firmware 5.4 allows both Open and Shared.

Ensure Network Authentication (Shared Mode) box is ticked or the drop down box is set to Shared if you have installed various XP updates.

[Ben Tusting]

Thanks marcel will try this in a bit, have chnaged the channels before and it still woudn't work. Where do i find the 128 Hex Key in the WEP Encryption key.

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

You need to configure the key on the accesspoint, you can choose a password yourself.

[Yves Maex]

I used mac filtering to protect my wifi network

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Originally Posted by Yves Maex

I used mac filtering to protect my wifi network

Ok then you can skip the Web part, be sure your pc mac is added to the mac accesspoint.

[Yves Maex]

Originally Posted by Marcel Hulsbergen

Ok then you can skip the Web part, be sure your pc mac is added to the mac accesspoint.

yep, i had probs with the webkey with my pda, it was a bug in the pda's software, but now with my new one, it should not be a problem.

[Ricky Willox]

I would not rely on only mac filtering its not really that secure. Mac addresses can be sniffed and most nics will allow you to set a mac address of your choice. So an attacker could gain access to your network by spoofing the mac address on his nic as long as the machine that owns that address is not on at the time hes in. As an extra layer of security its great though.

Unfortunately I dont know mac stuff at all other than is a BSD clone with a flashy gui
So other than the above I cannot really offer any advise sorry.

[Ben Tusting]

DSC00034.jpg

DSC00035.jpg

DSC00036.jpg
This is what happens

[Ricky Willox]

Not sure if this will help but it apparently helped someone else with a similar issue patch for wireless for XP sp2 if that what you are running.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[Yves Maex]

Originally Posted by Ricky Willox

I would not rely on only mac filtering its not really that secure. Mac addresses can be sniffed and most nics will allow you to set a mac address of your choice. So an attacker could gain access to your network by spoofing the mac address on his nic as long as the machine that owns that address is not on at the time hes in. As an extra layer of security its great though.

Unfortunately I dont know mac stuff at all other than is a BSD clone with a flashy gui
So other than the above I cannot really offer any advise sorry.

nic? at this moment i have a key and i use mac filtering, a few months ago i couldn't because my pda would not be able to connect it, but now that i'm using my hp it's going good.

[Ricky Willox]

network interface card.

Always better to have too much security than not enough