GladMont said:
Hi, I am having difficulty connecting wireless on my laptop.
Could you please clarify exactly what you are attempting to connect *to*?
Normally, you will be connecting with wireless to a router or other Wireless
Access Point, but your description almost sounds like you are attempting to
use an ISP login to connect to some piece of hardware that doesn't have
wireless functions.
ISP and router logins are entirely different things.
If you do not have a router, what exactly are you trying to log in to?
Other than wireless, how do you connect? Please be specific.
I have both a
WPA and an SSID.
What do you mean by that? WPA is an encryption scheme.
In case of typo, a WAP is a Wireless Access point, and you'll generally get
that as a function of a router.
SSID is just a name, an identifier for a wireless network, and stands for
Service Set IDentifier.
Now, it can happen that two different networks use the same SSID. This can
be a problem when two routers (usually of the same brand) are set up in
close proximity to each other, and different encryption schemes are used,
but the SSID is not changed. I see this sometimes when routers go on
sale....
What then happens is that there are two SSID's, such as "default" or
"linksys" and Windows cannot tell which is which. And for some reason,
Windows can decide to try to connect to the furthest one, for which it does
not have a valid encryption key. And Windows apparently has no way to try
the other router it DOES have the key for.
A variation of the problem is that if the other router did not have
encryption enabled and yours does, Windows connects to the one without.
Suddenly, network resources are entirely different, and if the ISP is
different, you can no longer send mail from the ISP's servers.
What you must always do is ensure that the router, or WAP, has a unique
SSID. If you're unsure... plug directly into the router or WAP, change its
SSID - add a couple of letters or numbers - and rescan the wireless. If
you still see the original SSID *and* also see the modified one, there's
another network that was confusing the connection.
I have sucessfully downloaded the sp2 and when attempting
to add a wireless network connection - in the Association tab, I still
only
have two choices "open" and "shared," even though both my service provider
and the trouble shooter provided by windows state that I should have
options
"open", "shared", "wpa", "wpa-psk"?
These options are related to the capabilities of the wireless card itself
and its driver, and have basically nothing at all to do with the service
provider or Windows.
If the wireless card, (hardware and firmware ) and drivers don't support
these options, you will not see them.
If they are needed, you simply have to get another wireless adapter that
*does* support them. Software cannot add features that the hardware and
its firmware do not support.
I have checked my wirelss zero
configuaratio, turned off all firewalls, refreshed the wireless switch,
and
removed and added (using wep - manually) a wireless connection, even set a
new password with my provider,
Please be clearer about "your provider". This sounds like you have a DSL
high-speed service, which unlike Cable requires a username and password,
and are using your ISP login information.
What exactly are you trying to log into? Normally, unless your ISP sent
you a router with wireless functions, they can't help you with this, and
what you do to log in to a DSL service is completely different from
authenticating to a wireless router. If you change your ISP login, this
does *not* affect the wireless encryption on a router... and so does nothing
to help you connect.
but my wireless connection still says "not
connected".... please help..
More specific help will be possible once you can identify what exactly you
are attempting to connect to.
What are you connecting to, and how much access to it and control over it do
you have? If possible, test that you can actually connect by going to the
router and temporarily disabling encryption. You should then be able to
connect.
Then, turn encryption back on, but connect via wire to to the router. Log
into the router from your laptop, and copy the wireless encryption key from
the router's wireless config page to a text file on your laptop. Save
this. Now, paste that same key into the wireless driver dialogs that ask
for the encryption key. When it says connected, disconnect the cable,
and try surfing.
Finally, I have seen an odd problem on one wireless router model.
Virtually all wireless routers provide for four encryption keys, but on this
specific model, entering anything past the first key completely prevented
any wireless connection. Removing the second to fourth keys and saving
the changes fixed it instantly, and everyone could connect (as long as they
used the first key).
HTH
-pk
