Wireless question

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hey guys/gals,

I have a quick question. When I setup my wireless connection with the SSID broadcasting I notice that the connection in the wireless network properties displays "SSID name(Automatic)" which allows me to instantly connect to the router. When I disable the SSID broadcast the Automatic turns to Manual and I cant connect anymore even though everything is properly setup.

I use WPA2-PSK with AES for encryption and also my router is a Linksys Wireless G WRT54G.

I also know that the disabling the SSID broadcast wont to do much since the beacon probe is used to synchronize the wireless computers with the router the SSID will be revealed, but I just want to know how come it goes to manual and doesn't allow me to connect. I even tried restarting the computer but still no use.

I read that people had the same issues with Windows and Linux, I figured if anyone should know it would probably be someone in this forum.

Thanks guys/gals.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I am pretty certain, that one of my neighbours doesn't broadcast their SSID and does automatically connect. I would delete and re-create the connection how you want to use it now.

Si

 

Thats the thing Boyce, I tried deleting and recreating the connection but it wont do much still get manual. I only have 1 wireless computer which is my laptop and nothing else so I only use one wireless connection.

 

Prof,

Are there any nearby wirless networks within range that might be causing interference?

You say you are using a WRT54G - what are you using on the laptop?
Have you got any additional software installed that might be required to run the adapter (if necessary)?

It might be worth placing the laptop right next to the access point, turning the encryption off and start again.

Oh, I find Netstumbler very good at detecting nearby networks that could be causing a problem.

Post back!

Si

 

Hey Boyce,

I used netstumbler and it detects a few wireless connections around my network, including 3 ap's.

I dont know if there is an intereference problem because I noticed that signal strength to the other connnections are very weak like 1/5 bars.

As for my laptop I assum you mean the wireless NIC that it uses, it is a Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN

 

Hey prof

Have you tried disabling the Windows Wireless Zero Config service and using the configuration tool that came with your Wireless card instead?

 

Hey Zeb,

No I havent tried that, I didnt really get any cd when I bought my laptop, it just had a recovery partion and I reinstalled the OS right away after I got my laptop because it had a bunch of useless stuff.

But I'll go look on their site and see if they offer any applications for managing the wireless NIC.

 

I'm pretty sure the Windows Zero Config service needs the SSID to be boradcast in order for it to detect the network at all to allow you to connect.

If you can't find a built-in utility for your WNIC, best advice would probably be to temporarily enable SSID broadcast, change it to summat memorable and slightly secure, delete current connection settings then let it detect the network again & connect to it - then try disabling SSID broadcast again.

Hope that works out for ya - I'm off to bed

 

All I found was some utility that tells you if your device is on or off, no configuration settings available whats so over, pretty useless this app is.

Zeb thanks for that pointer, I will try it out and let you know.

Thanks again for the replies guys.


Edit: Its weird, the minute the SSID is not broadcasted the laptop obviously wont detect it and it automaticaly sets it self to manual which is normal, but when you try to manualy connect to the network it cant obtain the ip address and it doesnt even see the SSID even though it is specified in the connection properties.

Gotta keep on trying, there must be away since it works for other people.

 

Well the problem is that wireless is not an exact science. I have had a few weird problems myself. Have you tried the laptop manufacturers knowledgebase?

In one instance, I was getting a disconnected signal on my laptop (the little wireless monitor in the task bar had a red cross on it), I could not detect any wireless networks although I was just 18 inches away from a you-guessed-it Linksys router yet I was connecting to the internet and other computers alright. Never worked that out, but I have learnt to accept Linksys for what it is. Unpredictable yet pretty rugged.