Just wondering if anyone can help me here. A girl I know has a broadband connection which is installed in her son's bedroom, she has a pc downstairs (which she wants to keep downstairs) her son has a laptop upstairs. The network was set up on the laptop so the cable to the router is in the laptop, the pc is connected via a wireless usb adapter. Wot I'm wanting to do now is make the laptop free of any cable attachment to the router, can this be done?
Is there a way I can get the laptop to connect via it's own built in wireless adapter?
The laptop finds their secured network when the router cable is detached but it doesn't offer anywhere to add the password to gain access.

Off top of me head, disconnect the connection from laptop to the router. Then disable the LAN connection from the Laptop through network connections (you can always re-enable later).

Then see if the connection comes up again and you get prompted for a password that way. I think the reason you get no password prompt at the mo is cuz you're still connected by the physical connection.

Cheers mate! :thumb: I'll give it a shot, might get a shag out of this. :D

Good luck mate !

How old is the laptop and router? Some older laptops don't offer the security level that the newer routers are capable of. If nothing else, try it without security...just leave it open for testing purposes. I had a similar issue with a laptop that had built in wireless but could not do WPA-PSK and hence I would never get a prompt and could never attach to the network. Good luck with it. I'm sure you will sort it out.

The laptop and router are both within a year old mate. The laptop is running Vista which I am not familiar with at all. I'm gonna try wot Mondy suggested when I get round there, so hopefully it will work. thanks for looking in. :thumb:

How old is the laptop and router? Some older laptops don't offer the security level that the newer routers are capable of. If nothing else, try it without security...just leave it open for testing purposes. I had a similar issue with a laptop that had built in wireless but could not do WPA-PSK and hence I would never get a prompt and could never attach to the network. Good luck with it. I'm sure you will sort it out.

im having the same trub with my daughters laptop using the wireless option.
it wont have it using wpa-psk, i read on forums that using wep might work. ive yet to try it though.

regards,
jim.

im having the same trub with my daughters laptop using the wireless option.
it wont have it using wpa-psk, i read on forums that using wep might work. ive yet to try it though.

regards,
jim.

The thing with WEP is it's so old and easily and quickly exploitable. I would much prefer to bind the MAC addresses of anything inside the network and save the overhead and not take a speed hit. Also, my best advice...here in the US, we use channel 6 as default...stay away from it. Use another channel and get better connectivity. My 2 cents..or .004 Euro's. :) Cheers and good wishes.

As 3fingers said, forget WEP. I have my own wireless router setup for MAC address access list. I have a laptop downstairs, PC and Apple upstairs not to mention my boys Nintendo DS's, PSP and Wii all hooked up via wireless (I think my house is turning into a microwave LOL). I disable security on the router and enable the access list via MAC address. Each device has a mac address formated in hex e.g. 0a:f1:a2:00:70:53. Add these addresses into the access list and that is it. very simple.

Interesting stuff. I didn't know about the MAC address. I may look into this. But with a wife that uses the computer, I may stick to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" way of working ! :lol:

But that was a good point from 3fingers regarding channel 6. I had to change mine because my wireless card kept recognising everyone else's wireless networks in the street and all the interference stopped it from recognising mine in the same house !

Someone in my street or neighbourhood has such a strong wireless router that it is always recognised first. I'd like to find where it is and smash it, or alternatively, hack into it and use it as it would save me loads of problems as it is the first one seen on every search on every channel !

But changing from channel 6 sorted out my issues. It's just mine and the "broadcast on all channels on max strength" router I see now.

:thumb:

sorry bout hijacking your thread pete..:hug:

so if i just allow the laptop mac addy..security off, no one can access the daughters line? ie log on her network or have a mooch about lol

regards,
jim.

sorry bout hijacking your thread pete..:hug:

so if i just allow the laptop mac addy..security off, no one can access the daughters line? ie log on her network or have a mooch about lol

regards,
jim. No worries Jim :thumb:

Fuck! This mac stuff is beyond me, I just looked in my router set up and I can't find anywhere to add them or anywhere that is listing which mac addresses are currently using my network. My old D-Link router used to show me all the devices that were connected this Linksys one don't.

Linksys is the easiest to configure believe it or not. The settings are in there...just search under every nook and cranny. But since you have not bound any MAC adresses, they don't automatically show up. You will have to find them on your hardware and the code them in (usually under advanced options tab on the Linksys). For example my laptop has the MAC address of the wireless printed on the bottom of the machine (It's an older IBM Thinkpad). On other machines, you may have to look at your documentation. It is as A2G mentioned: a number that looks like this: 0a:f1:a2:00:70:53. Put those in as allowable and exclude all others and you won't have issues.

If I have to, I will pull an old Linksys out and screen print where those settings are located. Hopefully you will find them though. I promise they are in there somewhere. Again.. best of luck. Stay with it. It's worth it.

Yeah since my last post I think I've found the place, is it the Mac filtering section? If so, do I use the mac address that I get via Start\Run\cmd in windows, on all three pc's, or do I just copy the address that is on the bottom of my modem and (hopefully) on the adapters on each other machine?