Wireless Pains
March 6th, 2005 by Ian
Finally decided to add wireless networking to the house. Bought a wireless router and access card today. It is amazing how cheap they have gotten! After rebates, it will have only cost me $70 for both. Not too shabby.
I had a number of problems setting everything up. My first issue was setting up the wireless router so it would incorporate with the wired router. I wanted computers on both networks to “see” each other. It turns out to be quite simple, but a little cludgy. Basically you turn off the DHCP server on the wireless router, set its WAN IP to some dummy IP not in the range of your wired router, set its LAN IP in the same subnet mask of the wired router but outside the wired router’s DHCP range, and finally connect the two routers LAN port to LAN port. Of course, none of this was documented by the manufacturer. I had to google to find the answer.
Once that was all done, things seemed to be working great. Computers on the wireless network could “see” computers on the wired network and vice versa. With that working, I went on to secure the wireless network. As soon as I turned on WEP authentication, new problems began. The computer on the wireless network would appear to connect, but was unable to hit the internet or any other machine on the network. I’d check the status app and everything looked fine. I tried google again but couldn’t find anything to explain it. Without WEP, everything worked. Turn on WEP, and it all broke down. The router and card were both from the same manufacturer so you’d assume they could talk over anything. After spending way too long debugging the problem, I decided to upgrade both components to the latest firmware. Lo and behold, that fixed the problem.
What pisses me off is that I bought two components from the same manufacturer and they couldn’t communicate with each other out of the box. You’d think they would test these things. Oh well, it is all working now so I’m happy.
Now I sit on the couch, blogging away while Bobby and I watch Alias. I’m loving this!
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy…and it sounds very worthwhile
You’re right - it was very worthwhile! Yesterday afternoon I was able to take the laptop in the backyard so I could surf the web while I admired the flowers and played with the dogs. It was great!
It has gotten even better now that I can remote into my office pc. Anywhere in the house, it is like I’m at my desk. I love it
I have a plan to build an arbor in the back and, once we get some landscaping back there and a wireless laptop, I look forward to lazy Saturdays and Sundays when James and I sit on the back with our laptops, sipping our coffee and watching the dogs play. Of course, it will be even better in House 2.0 with a pool