How to set up a wireless network

[jal]

I just moved into my sister's house. I want to network my computer to hers so we can share SageTV (and internet). The problem is I've never installed a wireless network. I have no idea what I'm doing. Here's what I've got going so far.

My computer is physically cabled to a Dir-615 DLink wireless router (802.11N). The Comcast cable modem is also cabled to the router. The internet works fine on my computer.


I just put a PCI TrendNet 802.11g wireless network card in my sister's computer. Shows a red X in Network Connections indicating disconnected. I don't know how to make it connect.

To avoid any distance factor, I put the two computers to sit right next to each other at the kitchen table. The little antennas are installed on both the router and the PCI card.

I tried the Windows XP wireless network setup wizard. No error messages, but no luck.

I tried my router's Web configuration wizard located at
http://192.168.0.1/
here too no error messages, but no luck. I did not enable security at the moment, as I am simply trying to connect. (I'll have to worry about security later)

Both computers have "MsHome" as the workgroup name.
Both computers have "dlink" as the SSID (whatever that means).

On the PCI card, I verified it is set to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS address automatically."

[Clift]

Did you install the wireless card drivers from the CD that came with it? If you did, there is a good chance that there is a Trendnet application trying to control your wireless settings, rather than Windows. This guide has some directions and look at the last page, question 4. That may help you. Usually I don't recommend using the manufacturer's wireless configuration utility, so if you're so inclined you could uninstall that program (if you have it installed) and uninstall the card drivers. Then I would reinstall the card using the windows installer and guide it to the CD ROM to find the drivers. If you don;t want to risk that then just disable the windows wireless zero service by following the directions from the quick start guide I posted. Let us know if that solvesyour problem.

Good luck.

[jal]

Thanks Clift, but I didn't find the manual very helpful. Here's a sketch of the solution I found (if it helps anyone) - my router probably requires an additional setup step or two since it has WEP security:


First, I believe the network card must have the same SSID (basically a network name) as the router, in this case I set it to the name "dlink". Right-click the network card and choose Wireless Settings > Use Windows to Configure My Wireless Settings. Click apply. Then go back into that same tab and choose View Available Networks and then choose your network by SSID name ("dlink" in my case) and click "Connect"
- Then Windows said "Validating Identity" but the problem is that this message never ends. To get around this, go back into that same menu (right-click card > Properties > Wireless settings) and look at the listbox for the name of your network (the SSID which is "dlink" in my case). Select it, choose properties, and on the authentication tab, uncheck "Enable IEEE 802.1x...." - apparently this will force you to put in an encryption key manually. Go back to the Dlink router web page. You'll see two options. (1) Wireless Connection Wizard and (2) Add a Wireless device, choose option 1 and it will create a 26 digit key (mostly capital letters, case sensitive). Write it down on paper and then go back to the other computer and follow the above steps - this time it will prompt you for the key - it's a masked textbox so first type into Wordpad and then paste it in. This time you should be able to connect. Done!
- By the way, for most routers there's no way to prompt the router web page to give you the 26 digit key if you lose the paper on which you wrote it down. But you can always generate a new key and start over.
- If you get "Limited Or No Connectivity" go to Association tab - basically the same place as before which is Properties > Wireless Settings > Listbox > "Dlink" (or your SSID namea) > Properties and uncheck "The key is assigned to me automatically". Paste the 26 digit key from Wordpad into the textbox. You should now be fully connected. Done!

[jal]

Next question, we actually have yet another computer, so I also bought a USB wireless network card. To do a side-by-side comparison, I installed both the PCI card and the USB card on my sister's computer, and then surfed the internet to get a feel for speed. Here's the weird thing. The TrendNet PCI card is loading the web pages about five times faster than the DLink USB card, even though the Dlink USB card has a better rating (802.11n) versus 802.11g on the TrendNet PCI card. Plus the USB card cost twice as much. Again, I ran the tests with both cards on one and the same computer.

Is this par for the course? Will the PCI card generally outperform the USB?

[jal]

Nevermind the last question, I'm finding on Google that people are in sharp disagreement over whether PCI cards are better than USB for wireless netwokring.

[Clift]

There are too many variables to make an assertion either way. Anyway the wireless n card will be no faster at internet surfing due to the fact that your internet connection is probably no faster than your wireless connection speed. Wireless g is 54 mbps and I think your high speed internet is probably no faster than 8 mbps.

But glad to see that everything is working now.

[jal]

Originally Posted by Clift

There are too many variables to make an assertion either way. Anyway the wireless n card will be no faster at internet surfing due to the fact that your internet connection is probably no faster than your wireless connection speed. Wireless g is 54 mbps and I think your high speed internet is probably no faster than 8 mbps.

But glad to see that everything is working now.

Well, not everything, just the wireless network. I haven't even tested SageTV yet. I'll post back if I have any more problems. Thanks for listening.

[jal]

SageTV Client is no longer working (it was originally installed on a physical network). Don't know if I have to uninstall it and reinstall it on behalf of my new wireless network. (Yawn) It's way past my bedtime, maybe I'll take this up tomorrow. Any suggestions?

[jal]

Ok, on the server I had to rerun the configuration wizard and choose "Automatically detect my Up-N-P router" (or something like that). Then the client started working. Everything's working except that my motherboard seems to be going out on one of the machines (the USB ports seem to be losing connectivity for all USB devices including keyboard and mouse). So my setup isn't very stable. I may have to replace that computer, it's about five years old.

[jal]

SageTv is sluggish - it can't handle the HD channels at all and the menus are slow to respond. For example if I open the "stop playback" menu when watching SageTV and then click Cancel to close the menu, it merely shrinks to a smaller size,then sits there for 30 seconds, and finally disappears. It's doing this on the Sage server. Even the main menu is sluggish, for instance if I select "SageTV recordings" there is a pause - sometimes 30 seconds - before I can even see the list of recordings.

This is weird because this isn't a fresh installation of SageTV - it was already installed on that computer as Sage server, the only difference now that I can see is that the computer is now on a wireless network - which perhaps should slow down the client, but should it really slow down the server that much?

[jal]

Even more weird - the client isn't sluggish (except when connecting to SageTv). Once connected, sageTV runs fast on the client.