Wireless issue

unnameduser

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice. My mate asked me to help fix his wireless broadband. Now it worked perfectly for him before.

He has a compaq laptop running XP with a built in wireless card. He connects to wireless broadband with eircom.

Now at the moment, his card picks up and drops the connection every couple of seconds, it also picks up another wireless connection nearby and a FWI wireless broadband connection.

Now the WEP key is correct but the connections come and go the whole time every couple of seconds.

Im trying to figure out if it is the router or the card itself.

I have the laptop at my house now and it connects no problem to my broadband and is working perfectly.

Any suggestions would be really appreciated??

ethernet

Try disabling encryption temporarily to see if that solves the problem. Is there a MAC access control list? This could be restricting the connection.

Try turning off any cordless phones, microwaves and video senders to see if that solves the problem. Are any of the other wireless networks using the same channel as his network? If so, change it.

unnameduser

ethernet. Ill try those when i head back over to him tomor. Thanks.
Also, I updated his adware/spyware scanners and have found some nasty stuff so perhaps this may be having an effect also??

Any other suggestions?

ethernet

unnameduser wrote:

ethernet. Ill try those when i head back over to him tomor. Thanks.
Also, I updated his adware/spyware scanners and have found some nasty stuff so perhaps this may be having an effect also??

Any other suggestions?

Possibly. If it's really nasty, I'd nearly go as far as reinstalling.

Does the laptop have a static IP address or is it set to receive one by DHCP?

Here's a wild suggestion: WEP encryption is easily hacked. If the encryption key is the same as the router's administration password, then the hacker easily could have changed the settings to have the connection all to himself/herself. Really should be using WPA encryption instead.

unnameduser

Thanks for the help...

not sure about the IP address. How can i check this??

As regards the WEP key, i presume i can just go into the router settings and change to WPA. (On another note, If this is just the case why doesnt everyone use WPA since its safer?)

ethernet

unnameduser wrote:

Thanks for the help...

not sure about the IP address. How can i check this??

As regards the WEP key, i presume i can just go into the router settings and change to WPA. (On another note, If this is just the case why doesnt everyone use WPA since its safer?)

• To find out if the client is being assigned an IP address by DHCP, open the Command Prompt [shortcut: Start --> Run --> enter cmd and hit enter]. When you get the Command Prompt, type: ipconfig /all and hit enter. Look at Local Area Connection. Yes or no will be beside DHCP.
• To change to WPA, yes, open up the router's admin page. Select WPA and enter a key, i.e. a password. Ideally, it should be long, have a mixture of letters and numbers as well as uppercase and lowercase letters.
• Not everyone knows about the weaknesses of WEP. Eircom's routers come configured to use WEP by default, which is terrible. Also, some older wireless networking gear doesn't support WPA, only WEP.

unnameduser

ok checked out the router last night and DHCP is on. I turned off encryption and it connected and then disconnected. I would like to rule out the router itself.. i have an ESAT BT router that i dont use anymore. Will this work with EIRCOM broadband?

irlrobins

I think people have managed to get Eircom on BT and vice versa. I'd also try switching the channel that the modem is set to use. It's probably at the default setting of 7 so try 1 or 11 instead. Nearby wireless might be causing interference.

ethernet

irlrobins wrote:

I think people have managed to get Eircom on BT and vice versa. I'd also try switching the channel that the modem is set to use. It's probably at the default setting of 7 so try 1 or 11 instead. Nearby wireless might be causing interference.

Spot on -- the ADSL routers can be configured to work for another provider's service.

Certainly is worth changing the channel. Doing so fixed a similar problem for another poster here recently.