BleepingComputer.com: Wireless Connection Know-how?

We have a desktop and two laptops connected with Netgear Wireless router and SBC Yahoo DSL.

We just bought hubby a Belkin wireless card (so we can hook up a third laptop) from Wally world--the clerk said it "should" work. We've been trying all day to figure out how to and what to do. Can't find the Netgear info booklet/papers.

Can anyone tell us how to get hubby's up and running? It's an old, refurbished Dell, with Windows ME, very small 4.8 gb and 128 mb ram. Still plenty of room on it.

We already have two-wire (SBC) installed on it; we're just not sure what to do next. Can't remember how we got the other two laptops working with the wireless.

Will the Belkin card actually work with the Netgear router?

Please help! Hubby has waited months to get a wireless card and it's his birthday present today.

Thanks in advance if anyone is even available to help today.

If you secured the router to prevent other from accessing your DSL you may have to login to your router and set the premission so the new card can be seen.

Thanks, acklan. Not sure how to login to the router but will look around and see if we can figure that out. I'll most likely be back with more questions....

What is the LAN IP address for your computer. It should be..

192.168.1.xxx
or
10.1.1.xxx

Whatever your listed gateway is you should type into the IE or FF address bar.

Example:

192.168.1.1
or
10.1.1.1

Then a popup will prompt you for a password. the default password is admin.

Is the LAN IP the same thing as IP address? If so, it's just that the LAN threw me off. If not, sorry to be so dumb but how do I find out what my LAN IP is?

We started over with the Belkin card software install. Right now it is asking for the SSID; would that be the name of the mother/host/main/whatever computer?

Edited later....we got the SSID off of one of the other laptops. Now it wants the network key, but on the other laptop where we got the SSID, the network key is little black dots (like a secure password)---how do we find or know the network key?

The LAN (Local Area Network) is the network that the computers in your house/buiness have access to. If you are behind a router, which your are, the router will issue your computers a LAN IP.
The other IP address is the WAN (Wide Area Network) or internet IP address. This is the IP your ISP (Internet Service Provider) assigns you, so that your computer/LAN can be found on the internet.
The LAN IPs are not able to be seen from the internet unless you open a port to purposely allow it. That is not important right now, what is important is a router greatly increases you security.

As was once said," Why reinvent the wheel". I am going to provide you with several relevent links...

SSID

Belkin Wireless Router Configuration

I hoe this was of some help, althought it was more than you wanted.


Merry Christmas.

Thanks anyway, acklan. Can't say you didn't try.

You have wireless security configured on the Netgear router which is good. You seem to have mislayed or forgotten your network key (sort of a password) which is bad. You have two options:

1) Think back to when you set up the other two laptops, you would have had to enter the same SSID and network key into them to make them work. Did you write it down somewhere, is there something which you used as a mnemonic for the password?

2) Change the key. You need to access the router configuration menu, go to the WEP settings and enter a new key. Once you set a new key on the router you will not be able to access it from any of the wireless laptops without reconfiguring them with the new key.

If you are having difficulty accessing the Netgear router check their website for configuration settings. The Ip address could be 198.168.0.227 but it depends on your network. Unless you have changed it the login will be admin/admin or admin/password.

hth

Thanks, Rimmer.

We finally called Belkin and Netgear. Belkin's tech said we MAY have to change channels on the router, but didn't know how it was done so told us to call Netgear.

Called Netgear and she was trying to take us through START RUN CMD and then ping 192.168.1.1 which was similar sort of to one of the links acklan gave me.

The ping thing wasn't working; kept timing out (Request timed out)...she said it had to do with the ZoneAlarm firewall. Said to disable it and try again. Which we did, but it still kept saying timed out. She thought maybe I didn't disable the ZA properly.

The only thing I knew to do to disable ZA was right click on it down by the clock and then choose to shut it down--is that correct?

Well, it still didn't work. I remember seeing the other day, a "Windows firewall" (?I think?) somewhere when I was looking through some stuff on this laptop of mine but don't know how to find it again. I was thinking that maybe I'd need to temporarily disable IT too??

Windows firewall should have been disabled by ZA when it was installed. You can find the windws firewall at Start>Control Panal>Windows Firewall. Cauion, Do not run two firewall programs at one time.
Try My Network(right click)>Local Network Connection>Support. What is the IP Address, Subnet Mask, and Default Gateway?

Yes that's all you have to do to disable Zone Alarm temporarily.

So the Netgear router address is 192.168.1.1 is that correct?
You are trying to ping it from your own laptop, which currently has working internet access?
The pings time out?
That makes no sense if the IP address is correct.

At the command prompt (start>run>cmd) type ipconfig /all. Wherever you see "IP Address ..." write down the address and the heading that it was listed under. Post it back here.

If the address 192.168.1.1 is listed under "Gateway" or similar then open a browser window and type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar, then click the 'Go' button. What comes up?

acklan: Yes, I see that the Windows firewall is OFF. I can't yet find "My Network".


Rimmer: I'm not sure WHAT that number is...but the Netgear lady was telling me to put in that number. However, on the Belkin configuration link that acklan gave, the number is 192.168.2.1---but when I put in that number, all I get is a list of Search Results all containing that number, and yes, I'm putting it in the address bar, not the search bar.

We tried the ping thing from both the laptop (my working one) and the desktop. Yes, it keeps timing out.
When I tried your ipconfig /all I see a black box/screen for a split second then it's gone. It's not staying there long enough to see ANYthing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Gateway" but when I put either number address (either the 1.1 or the 2.1) in the search bar, I get a list of search results for that number.....each one looks like this:

http://192.168.2.1:4444/

the 4444 is different on each result. And it gives two pages of results for each---192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1


Rimmer, you asked if the Netgear router address is 192.168.1.1
I don't know, but the number the Belkin link says is only that one number (2) different from the one the Netgear tech lady was telling me to put in (the one with 1.1).

?

Quote

That's because you are not opening a command window. Go to Start>run and type cmd then in the black window that opens type ipconfig /all. Sorry I did not make that clear. Follow the instructions from my previous post now you can run this command.

Are you using IE or Firefox as the browser? Whichever you use you have "search from the Address bar" enabled which is confusing things. Please find that option and disable it.

FYI - 'My Network Places' should be in the Start menu (first menu that comes up). Alternatively see 'Network Connections' under the Control Panel.

THANKS, Rimmer!

acklan: here is the info you asked for:

IP Address: 172.16.1.35
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway: 172.16.0.1


Rimmer: I gotcha now. Okay, here it is:

Under the heading of 'Connection' it says the IP Address is 172.16.1.35

Okay, in your browser address bar type 172.16.0.1
What happens?