need help with XP and wifi WPA

Silicon Skum · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 7:50 pm Post subject: need help with XP and wifi WPA

I'm setting up a wireless ADSL connection for some one, I need to enable WPA (WEP is useless) to prevent the network from access. I cannot get XP to connect with the wifi point when I use ANY form (WPA, WEP) of security, it will only work when XP can see an open unsecured connection.
It does detect the secured connections, but it will not (fails) connect to them.

There is no alternative connection software as the wifi is a built in card on a laptop which is set to use windows XP to configure the wifi connection.

Any help would be appreciated.

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2old2care · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:06 pm Post subject:

Don't know which AP you're using...but, most require no extra software with XP.
So you can access the router unsecured, (http setup stuff) or just get inet?
A netgear I did a while back, I had to use a piece of cat5 to get to the router settings to enable all the stuff.
Then, once I got it all turned on, then I could do it wireless.
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Silicon Skum · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:15 am Post subject:

I'm setting up a Belkin ADSL wifi modem / router. when I'm not using any security such as wep or wpa the laptop will connect to the wifi signal and everything works, I can view the network, log into the router and access the internet. everything works. Very Happy

BUT, as soon as I use any security on the WIFI link the laptop (actualy XP is the problem) fails to connet to the wifi link. it will show up under a scan in the windows XP wifi settings, but it fails to connect to it each time.

I've been reading a few other forum posts like mine on some other hardware sites, so far no one has suggested anything that works. Funny thing is that my own older wifi cable router only supports WEP, on my network it has exactly the same problems with win XP, but I have no problems with other OSs because I can use the software that came with my wifi NICs to connect. The problem with XP is that it has it's own built in support for WIFI, and if you dissable it, you still can't get the wifi NICs software to connect to the router (with or with out WEP).

I have to run my wifi link with no security to allow XP to connect, that I can live with, but I can't do the same with the ADSL link I'm setting up some one.

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Fitz Goran · TweakNOOB Joined: 07 Sep 2004 Posts: 53

Have you tried upgrading the firmware on the router? Weazel's current wifi router (dlink I thinkg) wouldn't allow wireless clients to connect with security enabled until the firmware was updated.

Does the maker of the laptop have updated drivers for the on-board wifi card?

Are you trying WPK-PSK?

Are you running SP2 and does the on-board card support WPA?

That is all I can think of now...

[KoG]^weaZel · Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:31 pm Post subject:

the wireless router is Netgear just to verify.
go to bed Fitz your tired
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Silicon Skum · Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:21 pm Post subject:

The routers (both my cable router and the ADSL router) are fully up to date with the firmware (that is there are NO updates....) In my case my router ONLY supports WEP and that will not work under XP but it WILL work fine under 2K and any other NT or 9x based OS.

The other router only has a single laptop with XP to use, so I cannot say if it runs WEP / WPA under other OSes as I don't hve a wireless NIC and laptop without XP to test it with.
Laptop supports both WPA and WEP modes, neither will connect under XP, the zero config seems to connect to the wifi but fails to get an IP under DHCP and manual IP setting makes no difference.

I have found a LARGE number of websites ALL reporting the same problem as I have, and they ALL have XP. So it seems the problem (as many others have found out) is XP's "zero config wifi" which seems to work on SOME machines and not others (even if they are hardware identical). No decent work-around hase been found yet. The MS technet has a few guides about this problem, and it does indicate that MS *know* about the "undocumented feature" but have no patch or solution to actually fix the problem, just a temp fix that allows some machines access for that session but will not last past a re-boot or stand-by mode.

I will try to add some sort of security to the ADSL modem, as it only has the one machine I will prolly just block all IPs except for the one I set manually for the wifi NIC, disable DHCP and disable the SSID broadcast. Not perfect, but better than nothing. Confused

I have not been able to get any wep based security to work on my XP machines, so I will prolly just install another OS. Bloody Micro $oft!

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Fitz Goran · TweakNOOB Joined: 07 Sep 2004 Posts: 53

I have run into a few situations where a wifi connection wouldn't work. I had to uninstall the wireless adaptor from the device manager. The connections seemed to work ok after the drivers were re-installed after a reboot, probably wouldn't work in all situation though.

There is a way to manually setup a connection but I don't remember the steps to get there at this time.