BB FANS

I am trying to connect my second laptop to my wireless router. It's asking me for my WEP key which of course I don't have and can't access off the website because it's encrypted. Any ideas as to how I can find it? or am I better just to reset the router with a new key?

Plain english please and thanks in advance.

First you'll need the book that came with your router. In there it'll tell you the default username and password needed to log in to the router.
It'll tell you to launch the browser (firefox or Internet Explorer) then type 192.168.1.1 and enter the above details.
Next look for the wireless section ,in there probably in plain text you'll find the key.

But as a security messure I'd change the encryption to WPA if it's supported by your wireless devices (Laptop ,and any others that connect wirelessly) because WEP isn't very secure and can be broken very quickly.

If you can't find the handbook for the router Google should be able to find it directly or the makers website where you can download a copy.

Also use Google to find detailed information on changing the encryption. The only problem would be if you or your children have Wii and want to use it on-line as they only support WEP.

If once you find the Key section it's encrypted (eg ******) then you'll have to change the key. You'll to then change it on everything that uses wireless.

Other recommendations include changing the broadcast name rather than beaconing the model of your router as someone could download a list of default Passwords etc and change your settings locking you out of your own router !

Or better still turn off the Beacon.

And change the Username and Password for the router and write them down along with the Key(s).

All details should be in the handbook but Google will find you guides for each step that may be easier to follow. But get them before you start just incase you loose you connection half way through.

Thanks Larry. I'm on a neighbours pc at the moment will look up the handbook on google. Probably quicker than trying to find it in my office

I had a lot of problems when I put my wireless in Boopy so can sympathise.

Hope you get it sorted...preferable without the amount of swearing I did

If you still have trouble try ringing the wireless makers and they can give you a set by set guide over the phone

It's a nightmare! I'm back to using a modem for now (just!) as I ended up ringing tech support and it seems there it possibly some kind of firewall or something stopping the router. gggrrrr anyway will give them a ring about it but not now as I've spent way too long on this as it is. Will come back to it later I think.

I swore lots in my head. The guy on the phone was a real sweetie I think he knew he was delaing with elthicko.

Strange as it should detect it as a new network.

Which operating system are you running ? XP sp1 ,XP sp2 ,Vista ,98 ?

Are you running any security suite software or seperate Firewall software ? Some Broadband installation CDs installs this sort of thing (eg virgin Media).

XP SP2 has it's own Firewall but you can manually define exceptions to allow the network through. EG setting IP Range 192.168.1.0 - 192.168.1.255 This would cover up to 255 users of you network.

To access the router to set it up you'll need to use the Ethernet cable which was hopefully supplied with the router to allow you to directly connect to it rather than trying to change the wireless settings whilst using wireless because you'll only get so far before you loose the connection as you change things.

I don't know anything about Vista but I try and tell you how to manually set things up ,for the others ,once I know the OS and what security software your running.

I really appreciate your help Larry. A guy at church has offered to sort it out for me. It gets so complicated I hard wired it and set it all up ok. The laptop is talking to the router but the router isn't talking to the broadband and that's what needs sorting out. Did I say it's a Linksys? and I have XP but not sure if its sp1 or 2. Anyway I'm so busy at the moment this is sliding down the list of priorities. It'll get done, just has to wait until after the mountain of other things!

I assume it's ADSL eg uses a BT line to carry the broadband. In which case it setting the username and password to logon to the Broadband service.

With BT in the username you don't just put you Email address but you have to add the gateway code.

so if you email was bboop@btinternet.com you'd enter something like bboop@hg01.btinternet.com

The only of difference I know of is with AOL where one of the settings is different to everybody else. I'm trying to remember .... I think it's MTU = 1500 ? It's a long time since I last tried to set up AOL for anybody I haven't have a lot of success. But again this could be down to the gateway code being wrong.

I've done a couple on BT accounts and their software simplified things.

Cable is normally plug and play. Plug the Cable modem into the WAN socket and clone the MAC address using the built in function and away you go.

I think the TP-Link Wireless router I've got is ADSL as I couldn't get it to set-up with the cable modem so it's fed off my Linksys router and does a great job this way. I had to change the IP address of the TP-Link to prevent problems with both routers by default having the same addresses.

Port Forwarding through two routers is fun if you want to use Peer-to-Peer software like Torrent.

And as extra security despite having the firewalls in both routers turned on and WPA encryption with the wireless beacon turned off I've used a function that filters the MAC addresses of computers than can use the wireless signals.So if the MAC address isn't listed in the router you can't access the Internet.

The chap from church may know what I'm going on about ,some of it might be useful.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

Did you get the router sorted ?