I can't use wireless on my PC

Ell69

I bought my daughter a laptop for christmas. So I thought I'd buy a wireless modem for our pC so that she could use the internet aswell on her laptop.
However , found out that our pc isn't compatible with wireless. I only found this out after I ordered one off BT for €55.
Off i go to our computer shop, and salesman tells me, I need a wireless card. I buy this, €50. Back home and find it won't fit in any of the slots.
So now what...anyone?? How much more is this going to cost me.

Sephiroth_dude

how old is yor computer?

PaddyTheNth

Bit of clarity needed.

Have you already got your PC connected to the internet?

If so, how is this done? By the internal modem?

Ell69

sorry for being so vague..
Its only 2yrs old Windows XP. I have internet through my phone line , wired modem .
Ive gone into my internet connections page and was told there should be a file I can click on that says 'wireless connection' , but there's only 'local area connection' there and I think its '1394' or some other numbers.

Spear

Ell69 wrote: »

sorry for being so vague..
Its only 2yrs old Windows XP. I have internet through my phone line , wired modem .
Ive gone into my internet connections page and was told there should be a file I can click on that says 'wireless connection' , but there's only 'local area connection' there and I think its '1394' or some other numbers.

Was the card you bought PCMCIA/PC-Card or was it PCI? It should say so on the box.

PaddyTheNth

So the telephone line plugs into a modem, which plugs into the PC?

And you want be able to go online from the laptop through the PC's internet connection? Bear in mind that on slow internet connections when you share it it obviously is going to be subjectively slower for a user on each machine when both computers are using the connection...

This is called internet connection sharing.

To do it wirelessly, you'll obviously need a wireless card for the PC, as I think you've realised.

If for some reason you can't install a wireless card in the usual manner, you could look at getting a USB wireless card like this. I'd be surprised if you couldn't install the card you've already bought though. What's the make and model of the card and the computer?

Once you have installed the wireless card you need to enable ICS. Here are some links with better descriptions than I can give of how to do it:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/setup/adhoc.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert/bowman_02april08.mspx
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=773683

mack81

What colour is it.

Anti

if your daughter is trying to use her laptop with wireless why would you need a wireless card in your main pc.

Diagram:

[Phoneline]

---

[Modem]

---

[Wireless router]

---

[Main pc]

thats how it would typicially work, all the instructions on how to setup the wireless router are in the pack that bt send you.

Ell69

its a netgear 54Mbps wireless PC card. Can't find whether it say PCI, just say WG5111 v2.

Ell69

Anti wrote: »

if your daughter is trying to use her laptop with wireless why would you need a wireless card in your main pc.

Diagram:

[Phoneline]

---

[Modem]

---

[Wireless router]

---

[Main pc]

thats how it would typicially work, all the instructions on how to setup the wireless router are in the pack that bt send you.

Anti, I 'm not sure I understand you, I only have one socket on the wall for the phone, whether its a wireless modem or wired I still have to plug it into the phone socket.

PaddyTheNth

Ell69 wrote: »

its a netgear 54Mbps wireless PC card. Can't find whether it say PCI, just say WG5111 v2.

Does the box look like this? - http://www.etech4sale.com/149732/netgear-wg5111-v2-54mbps-wireless.html

Ell69

PaddyTheNth wrote: »

Does the box look like this? - http://www.etech4sale.com/149732/netgear-wg5111-v2-54mbps-wireless.html

That's the one

newbie2

That's a wireless card for a laptop - not a desktop pc

Ell69

newbie2 wrote: »

That's a wireless card for a laptop - not a desktop pc

FFS that would explain it just a little, lol! Though just looked she's nowhere for it to go in hers either. Doesn't matter though what I wanted to do really was make my desktop compatible with wireless. So i think I'll have a look into buying that gadget that paddy gave me the link for. I'm just not computer lit at all, thanks.

PaddyTheNth

Ell69 wrote: »

That's the one

As was said, that's for a laptop/notebook.

Your daughter's laptop will have come with a wireless card already in it.

Take that back to the shop.

The easiest solution is as Anti suggested using a router. However I suspect that you don't have one. Can you confirm this? Do you have broadband? If you did they will generally supply you with a router when you get it.

KamiKazi

If your daughters laptop is recent it probably has built in wireless.

As your that card you bought, go back and tear the salesman a new one for grabbing an easy purchase.

Ell69

Not sure , but have an old little flat rectangle thing that plugs in by usb into the back of my computer. i had it for our old computer a few yrs ago, I was with eircom then and was able to get wireless on that computer. Its grey and used to light up when wirless was being used, is that what youre talikng about. so sorry for all the q's, haven't a clue. When I bought this computer I switched to Bt and they didnt do wireless back then so I just was using broadband via my phone line. All BT sent me was the modem, nothing else in the box.

Anti

Ell69 wrote: »

Anti, I 'm not sure I understand you, I only have one socket on the wall for the phone, whether its a wireless modem or wired I still have to plug it into the phone socket.

Sorry, ill try to explain it a bit better.

From you phoneline there is a cable which goes into your modem. From there is a cable which goes into your pc which provides you with teh interwebs.

With the wireless router you... plug that into your modem and then a cable from the wireless router to yoru main pc. Your daughter will then connect to the wireless router on her laptop wirelessly. There are instructions on how to do this with the wireless router from BT

Ell69

Thanks anti I'll give that a try

PaddyTheNth

Ell69:

can you go to Start -> Run

in the box that appears type 'cmd' and click OK or hit Enter.

When the command window appears type 'ipconfig' without the quotes and hit Enter.

You'll see three lines of numbers:
IP address
Subnet Mask
Default Gateway

Can you please tell us what the IP address and Default gateway are. This should sort out whether you are using a modem or a router.


I'll let Anti sort you out...too confusing to be following 2 different people.

Ell69

IP adress 192.168.1.33
Default gateway 192.168.1.1

PaddyTheNth

So the little box is a router.

As long as the router supports wireless, you should be good to go.

What model is the router? Can you see anything at all written on it?

PaddyTheNth

Basically you need to log into the router and see if you can enable Wireless on it, if it supports it.

If you type 192.168.1.1 into the address bar in your internet browser (firefox/internet explorer/etc) you'll see the control panel for the router.

Koloman

Did you get it working in the end?