Dell Inspiron 1720 Vista Wireless Problem

[almightyduck]

i have been able to locate wireless networks and connect to unsecured ones,
but i have been unable to connect ot my WPA-PSK wireless lan network.

I tried removing the security, and this works, but as soon as i re-enable
the security, it's not having it.

i've tried using different forms of encryption but still no luck.

it's vista home premium if thats any help.

 

[JW]

I suggest that you connect to your router with a cable and get everything
working with security and then try wireless with broadcast SSID enabled.
After that is working you can turn of SSID broadcast.

 

[David Stephens]

I am having the exact same problem with the seemingly exact same computer.

Using my new Dell Inspiron 1720 running Vista Home Premium w/a Dell Wireless
1395 802.11g Mini Card, I have tried to connect to my WPA-PSK wireless
network coming from a Qwest DSL Actiontec router with not much success. I
can pick up and connect to other networks in my neighborhood just fine, only
not my own, even if I manually set it up to do so.

Dell support last night had me connect to my wireless router via ethernet
cord and then manually ran the wireless card which worked, and I could then
detach the ethernet cord and still remain online. However, once I shut down
or restarted, I lost the network and could not reconnect.

Through grueling trial and error, I determined that I have to be within one
meter of the router upon start-up if I want internet capability; I can then
go anywhere in the house and still remain online, so long as I do not
restart.

A side note, my other notebook, a new HP Pavilion 17 incher (I dont have the
wireless card info at this time) is able to pick up my wireless router just
fine throughout the house.

Is it the Dell wireless card and capability issues with my type of wireless
network and my type of wireless router??? I think I'll have to take it to
work to see what it does there since they're running Qwest as well.

I am going to have another long bout with Dell support tonight to see about
this one meter distance issue.

 

[JW]

Are you sure that your router has SID broadcast turned on when you try to
connect to via wireless the first time? It does not appear to since you can
see other networks but not your own.
After you have connected to it then you can disable SID broadcast on your
new laptop and you have identified it as your primary router.
This is probably how you other laptop got set up.

 

[Sven Pran]

"JW" wrote

Are you sure that your router has SID broadcast turned on when you try to
connect to via wireless the first time? It does not appear to since you
can see other networks but not your own.
After you have connected to it then you can disable SID broadcast on your
new laptop and you have identified it as your primary router.

Somewhere I read that while having SID broadcast turned off as a means of
added security it is actuallly compromizing security. The reason is that the
client must broadcaset the SID to find if it is within range of the router.
This broadcast can be picked up by any monitor that can receive this client
broadcast.

The recommendation was to keep SID broadcast activated at all times and rely
on other security measures on the wirless network.

regards Sven

 

[David Stephens]

Thanks for everyones replies. At the end of troubleshooting with Dell,
changing the channels, new passwords, etc, they said that it must be
something with the router...and so it was. It took a while as well,
troubleshooting the current state of the router and my laptops, but once all
avenues were exhausted, they had me upgrade the firmware (software) of the
router from their website, which was what I was kind of suspecting; and I
even mentioned it off the bat, that it was an older router, I think i need to
upgrade something. None the less after wasting a couple hours going by the
book, the 15 minute upgrade at the end did the trick, and the signal has
never been stronger. It has something to do with the old firmware/signal not
being very Vista friendly.

 

[JW]

I recommended that you only keep Sid broadcast on for the couple of minutes
that it take your laptop to see it and logon to it.
I have used this procedure for several years and it works fine since once I
turn SID broadcasting back off now one else sees it and it would be very
unusual for any of my neighbors to be looking for a network during the
couple of minutes I had it turned on.