Wireless Network Setup Question (for PC)

December 24, 2003 9:55 AM

Twiddling my thumbs... wirelessly! I'm setting up a new Windows XP Pro laptop with built-in 802.11b. It seems to detect our Apple Airport (I) base station just fine, and connect to it. Just can't get any network services through it (ie: web pages are all 404s). Any suggestions?
posted by scarabic to technology (7 answers total)

Are you using WEP?
posted by sudama at 10:13 AM on December 24, 2003

1) Can you describe your network a bit more? I assume there is a router/firewall of some sort? Are there other computers on the network? Can you see those?

2) Is this a DNS issue? Can you get to pages via an IP address?

3) What if you take the wireless out of the picture? Can you get to the net if you use ethernet?

4) Do you know if you have DHCP enabled on the XP box? Is it set to use a dynamic IP rather than static?

I'm flailing about here and trying to narrow the scope.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:23 AM on December 24, 2003

I bet it has something to do with port forwarding and port filtering. That's always been my problem with my wireless router.
posted by ajpresto at 10:30 AM on December 24, 2003

Here's a walkthrough that covers the basics. If you're using WEP, there's one nonobvious setting that had me stumped for a good while: "ensure Network Authentication (Shared Mode) box is ticked." My Windows boxes would appear to connect to the Airport but would not have network services until I checked that box.
posted by sudama at 10:37 AM on December 24, 2003

Are the wireless card and the ethernet card bridged? Right-click on My Network Places to see.
posted by cowboy at 11:00 AM on December 24, 2003

i don't know if it's relevant, but i had a nasty shock the other day when i found that win2k wasn't using the standard ports for dns (on the client side). there's a registry setting that fixes it - it was giving me the symptoms you describe because a firewall was blocking the ports it was using.
posted by andrew cooke at 11:19 AM on December 24, 2003

Sorry should have provided more details. It's a home setup, cable modem-->home router. Apparently, I needed the WEP key. I've only done this on Macs before and I was not familiar with this step. The explanation on the ifelix walkthrough was more helpful than what I was seeing on screen. I'm all set now.

Thanks!
posted by scarabic at 11:26 AM on December 24, 2003