RESOLVED! - Vista laptop won't connect to our wireless router

[klod]

Update: I decided to turn off MAC filtering on the router per spidey07's post, and the Vista laptop was immediately able to connect. Again, thanks for the replys.


I've been trying to connect my son's new laptop to our home's wireless router. He's running Vista, the desktop is running XP SP3. The desktop is wired to the router.

At this point, I am not trying to get the computers to access each other. I'm only trying to get the laptop to wirelessly access the internet. If I connect the laptop to the router with a cable, it has internet access. Two other laptops running XP can connect wirelessly just fine.

I have added the laptop's mac address to my network. I have renamed the laptop workgroup to match my network's workgroup. In Vista, I have used Manually Connect To A Wireless Network, set the Security Type to WPA-Personal, Encryption type TKIP, entered my home networks Security Passphrase, selected Start This Connection Automatically, and selected Connect Even If The Network Is Not Broadcasting.

Our network will show up on the notebook's Network and Sharing center. I go to Connect To A Network, and it shows up, says Security-Enabled Network, and shows all 5 bars on the signal meter. I select the network and pick the Connect button, and I get a popup that asks if I want to run the diagnostics tool or connect to a different network. If I run the diagnostics, it says "Unknown Error". I looked in the log, and it says Unknown Error.

I have a netgear WGR614v5 wireless router running the latest firmware. I run it with the SSID hidden, but I tried it with it broadcasting the SSID and no luck. I also tried running it with no security at all, and still no luck.

The router is a couple of years old. Could it be the problem? What am I missing here?

Thanks,
Paul

 

[akhilles]

Has the router ever worked wirelessly?

 

[JackMDS]

Some old Routers have problems with Vista.

Log to Netgear support and check the status of your model.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

No, that router is good. With vista that is. Got one at the office that i use with my laptop all the time.
Jack, despite your networking knowledge I have to disagree with you. I work for a ISP here in Florida, My HP laptop is Vista Home Premium. I have never had a single problem associating with a AP because I have vista. And I work with many many routers a week.

Klod, If i were you I would reset the router to default settings, update the firmware to latest. Change the wireless channel to 1, 6, or 11. If its on one of them right now change it to another one of the 3. Also, when you connect are you getting a IP address from the router?
To check open up a command prompt and type ipconfig /all
it will output a lot of stuff, You are looking for the IPv4 Address under the "wireless connection" or whatever the wireless connection on the computer is named. If the ip is something like 169.x.x.x then you are not getting an ip, This could be for a few reasons, key is wrong, Mac is filtered, interference....ect. so disable everything thats why i recommend resting the router to default settings and trying then.

If the ip is 192.168.x.x then you have a IP question is, is it valid. Run IP config on the other computers that work and see if the ip is in the same range as the other computers IE, 192.168.0.5 is working computer laptop should have the ip of 192.168.0.x if they do not match ranges then you A, have a static ip set on the laptop or B, have conflicting DHCP servers that are butting heads.
I think the default IP range for the netgear's is 192.168.0.0/24 so if the address is something other then 192.168.0.x then something is wrong. But like i said, check the other computers to make sure the ranges match.

 

[klod]

Originally posted by: akhilles
Has the router ever worked wirelessly?

Two other laptops running XP work wirelessly now.



I am running the latest firmware. I will reset and try again.

I will also run the IP config and post it when I get back.

Thanks for the replys. I've never had this much trouble setting up a laptop for wireless, but it's my first time into Vista too, so...

Paul

 

[JackMDS]

Beause of the changes to the TCP/IP stack, and the lack of total adherence to the standards when comes to entry level network products, there is some issues between Vista and some Routers.

Under the model name WGR614 Netgear sell 6 or more versions. some of them has very little in common components wise.

Klod check carefully the v5 status at Netgear support site.

There is a statement there, "WGR614 v1 to v5 have been discontinued, no updates planned".

http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb...p#vista_wirelessrouter

Try your laptop elsewhere and if it works with other Access Points it might be a good time to get a more modern Wireless router.

 

[klod]

Will do. Thank you Jack.

Paul

 

[spidey07]

Yes, absolutely there are some routers that won't work with vista, more specifically the dhcp server on the router. Vista does DHCP incorrectly and some routers won't work with it.

Try it with a static IP address. Also always broadcast the SSID, no reason not to and it can cause problems.

It sounds like you already disabled all security, including mac filtering (which is useless anyway) so all troubleshooting should be with no security just to get that out of the way.

 

[klod]

Please see the update in my first post.