Wireless Network not working as should

  • Thread starter Thread starter crow dream
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crow dream

I am a complete newbie to the wireless network scene. If there is any
important information that I have left out I will be happy to clarify
it.

I've been trying to get my wireless network up and running for what
seems like ages and still no luck although i did get some kind of
break through last night.

Here is my problem:

I have one desktop computer running XP Home with a wireless connection
using a belkin product and one laptop running XP Professional with
also with a belking wireless notebook card.

I'm trying to configure a ad hoc peer to peer connection. When I
switch on the desktop(Host for the internet connection sharing) the IP
for the network gets configured in the 169.*.*.* range.(I understand
that when this range is used that there was some problem connecting to
the network. This being a peer to peer connection sudjests that
because the laptop wasn't on then this was the cause, is this
correct?) When I turn on the laptop i also get the same result. Both
computers can see each other over the network and i can exchange
files etc but i was not able to connect to the internet or ping any
internet ips or for example www.google.com.
The laptop and desktop are set to automatically configure ip.
Btw the default gateway had not value on the laptop although(I had
also tried to manually enter this value to that of the desktops ip).
So after much searching on google and trying many many sudjestions i
decided to try the wingate trial. Now this is were is gets a little
weird.
It says that in the help section that i have to set up the ip to
192.168.0.1 and the mask to 255.255.255.0 which i did on the
desktop/host. When this was done(i tried both before and after a
reboot) i could no longer see the laptop from the network or ping it.
So after trying a few different things I put in an IP on the laptop of
192.168.0.2. This seemed to work. I could see both computers on the
network and also use the internet on the laptop using wingate proxy
but then i rebooted the desktop and it was back to square one no
laptop on the network from the desktop perspective and not desktop
from the laptops. Both work groups are the same. Both SSIDs are the
same.
Is it true that if one computer is in the 192 range of ips and another
is in the 169 range that they will not see each other?

It also seems that when i switch the desktop back to using auto ip and
then try to connect and then re enter the static ip that this then is
able to be seen on the network.

I'm really at the end of my tether with this. If any one has even the
slightest idea of the cause please reply.

Thanks.
 
crow dream said:
I am a complete newbie to the wireless network scene. If there is any
important information that I have left out I will be happy to clarify
it.

I've been trying to get my wireless network up and running for what
seems like ages and still no luck although i did get some kind of
break through last night.
Click to expand...

You might be better asking this question in the
microsoft.public.windows.networking.wireless newsgroup. However, I am also
a novice at the wireless stuff, but I recently installed a Belkin-based
wireless network successfully. After many false starts, (and discovering
that the CD which came with one of the laptop cards was not installing the
software on the laptop correctly!) I decided it best to start from scratch
with a step-by-step approach.

I first established a peer network with a 'twisted' patch cable and made
sure the laptop and PC could both see each other and exchange data
correctly. Then, I replaced the crossover cable with a 'normal' one and
connected it to the WAP instead of the laptop. Next, I changed the IP
address on the PC to 81.0.186.xxx as per the Belkin installation
instructions, so that I could 'talk' to the Belkin WAP with the web browser.
Using the browser, I changed the IP address of the WAP to 192.168.0.xxx, and
changed the PC address back to 192.168.0.xxx. I could then 'ping' the WAP
and get a response so I followed the instructions to set up the logical
network. (Contrary to popular opinion among the networking experts, I found
the Microsoft 'Wizards' helpful and effective. Well, helpful-ish at least!
Certainly setting up ICS and the peer connection before the wireless thingy
got involved was relatively stress-free!)

Finally, I configured the laptop to use the wireless card instead of the
original NIC for networking and followed the instructions to configure it
for the wireless link. Eventually (I think sometimes a re-boot is necessary
for a configuration change to 'take', but they don't tell you that!)
everything - PC and 2 laptops - could communicate with everything else. All
units were running XP Pro.

ISTR that the desktop PC (host for ICS) had an IP address fixed at
192.168.0.1, the WAP 192.168.0.2, and the laptops which WERE 192.168.0.3 and
..4 on the cabled connection, were changed to 'obtain address automatically'
before the wireless network actually sprung into life.

HTH. Good luck.
 
I have exactly the same setup, except that both machines
are desktop variety.

I have not had to do anything manually at all. I have
run the network wizard on the host that accesses the
internet directly and told it to share the internet
access from this machine. Run it from the client and
told it to use the network adaptor to access the internet
through another machine.

This all worked perfectly, file sharing and internet etc.
However, it did stop working when there was some spyware
that got onto the machine(s). Installed and ran spybot
search & destroy and then it started working again. This
spyware stuff stopped the ICS working, although the
machines could still talk to eachother and share files.
Bizarre, but I think its worth you running this (get it
from www.safer-networking.org) and trying the basic
approach again. At the end of the day, XP should work it
out for you, you don't need to be mucking around with ip
addresses yourself.
 
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