hey guys, could use a little help here. tonight i purchased a notebook computer. cheapo, just wanted it to be able to take advantage of the wireless internet i set up a month or so ago.

so i have a wireless router (linksys) setup on my computer, and my roommate purchased a USB adapter (linksys) to access the wifi. all was gravy until i brought this laptop home. when it tried to access the network, it asked me for the password, which i entered. now both of our desktops run XP, and the laptop is running Vista, for what its worth. the laptop wouldn't accept the password ( it was 7 letters, and the laptop called for at least 8.) so no dice on the password. then i reset my wireless router and my laptop would recognize the generic password/passcode.

but now my roommate's wireless access won't work. i uninstalled his driver, and tried to reenter the passkey/word/code. nothing. it would even get as far as saying that it was trying to connect to the internet, but that may well have been another network besides ours.

after pulling my hair out for two hours i am done. do you guys have any ideas? i'd like to hear it from you, and not "Brandon" from Hyderbad.

thanks for any input.

10/4/2007 2:16:02 AM

have you tried changing channels?

in my experience, in almost all cases where one person is good and others aren't, it's due to channel interference (when the settings are good, of course)

*shrug*

[Edited on October 4, 2007 at 8:34 AM. Reason : .]

10/4/2007 8:27:20 AM

i would reset the router to default/factory settings...or even upgrade the firmware.

then make sure all pcs can connect to it without encryption

then enable encryption and try to get them to connect one by one. use the highest level of security that the pcs connecting to it are compatible with.

10/4/2007 9:45:26 AM

If you're needing 8 chars fro the psskey, it sounds like you're using WEP, and your router is configure to use WPA. You either need to adjust the configuration on your laptop so that it's using WPA, or if it doesn't support it, you'll need a new wireless adapter.

Alternatively, you can set up the router to use WEP, and reconfigure your roommate's computer to use WEP, but that's relatively insecure, and not recommended.

Reset everything, remove wireless profiles, etc. from the configuration on both of your computers, and do what synapse said about removing the security and testing it.

10/5/2007 12:40:49 PM