Getting WindozeXP Home to Use 802.11b Wireless Connection

[Ray Williams]

I am getting a bit frustrated with WindowsXP at this point. I
purchased and installed a belkin 802.11b router and a PCI 802.11b
wireless in my duaghters computer (she will be taking this back to
school and sharing a connection with two other girls in a townhouse
where the access point/router will be in another room with the other
two girls PC's plugged into the ethernet switch ports and one of the
PC's will be running connection sharing on a dial-up computer).

After installing the PCI card and the driver, her PC see's the
wireless connection. For the test set-up at home here (I am going to
use the same set-up for her at school) the PC's have the following
fixed addesses.

192.168.0.1 Gateway PC running connection sharing (attached to
ethernet port on WAP/router)
192.168.0.2 My PC running Linux (only one with a decent OS)
192.168.0.6 Her PC with the Belkin PCI card
192.168.0.254 Belkin WAP/router

The Belkin wireless utility states she is connected to the wireless
network, but any time I try to ping or run a traceroute to .254, .2,
..3 or the internet it fails with "no route to host." I have tried
everything (M$ connection wizards and different variations on the
route command) to set the default route through Wireless card. Also
when trying to use the route command I don't know the interface number
(the help file states that as long as the wireless interface has the
lowest metric it will get picked anyway) and I don't see anywhere in
the docs on how to find it. Using "route PRINT" does not list the
wireless card. Using IE or some other program brings up the interface
to start the dial up connection. What do you recommend I try?

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

I am getting a bit frustrated with WindowsXP at this point. I
purchased and installed a belkin 802.11b router and a PCI 802.11b
wireless in my duaghters computer (she will be taking this back to
school and sharing a connection with two other girls in a townhouse
where the access point/router will be in another room with the other
two girls PC's plugged into the ethernet switch ports and one of the
PC's will be running connection sharing on a dial-up computer).

After installing the PCI card and the driver, her PC see's the
wireless connection. For the test set-up at home here (I am going to
use the same set-up for her at school) the PC's have the following
fixed addesses.

192.168.0.1 Gateway PC running connection sharing (attached to
ethernet port on WAP/router)
192.168.0.2 My PC running Linux (only one with a decent OS)
192.168.0.6 Her PC with the Belkin PCI card
192.168.0.254 Belkin WAP/router

The Belkin wireless utility states she is connected to the wireless
network, but any time I try to ping or run a traceroute to .254, .2,
.3 or the internet it fails with "no route to host." I have tried
everything (M$ connection wizards and different variations on the
route command) to set the default route through Wireless card. Also
when trying to use the route command I don't know the interface number
(the help file states that as long as the wireless interface has the
lowest metric it will get picked anyway) and I don't see anywhere in
the docs on how to find it. Using "route PRINT" does not list the
wireless card. Using IE or some other program brings up the interface
to start the dial up connection. What do you recommend I try?

If you assign a fixed IP address to the wireless card, also assign a
subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and a default gateway of 192.168.0.254.
Is there a reason that you're not using DHCP and letting the router
assign the IP address?

These routes should appear in the route table. If they don't,
something's wrong:

default: 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.254 192.168.0.6
subnet: 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.6 192.168.0.6
host: 192.168.0.6 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1

Run "ipconfig /all" and see if the wireless card appears in the
output. If it doesn't, try un-installing and re-installing the card.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

 

[Ray Williams]

I did assign a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 as well as giving the
access point/router an address of 192.168.0.254. The reason I am
using fixed addresses is that I already run DHCP on my Linux box
covering the scope of the default on the belkin box, so I just turned
the belkin box off while I was going through the set-up. I am trying
to use the configuration that she will have down there. One thing I
can try is to turn my DHCP off and see if letting the router assign
IP's fixes the problem.