How do I connect my home's wireless network?

Factual Questions
1

I recently reinstalled windows and am trying to reconnect to my parents’ wireless network. I reinstalled the Linksys software and it sees the network. It gives me the SSID, MAC address, etc… but now I need to WEP key. My parents know nothing about their network so they are not much help. The last time a friend of mine set it up but he’s in Europe right now so he can’t help either.

When he set it up last time he started by typing an internet address made of numbers(something like 93485.59.24) on their computer, typed in the password(which I do remember from last time), got the info we needed and typed it into my computer. I can’t remember where he got the numbers for the internet address though. Any suggestions?

2

192.168.1.1 for the Linksys router. You will need the user name and password, though. You can ge the key from one of the pages after you access the router.

3

Once you log into the router, (Here is a how-to if you don’t have the password.) go into Wireless tab and click Wireless security. The WEP key should be in there.

4

First off, you have to do this from a machine that’s connected to the router, either with a ethernet cable or over the wireless connection.

If the IP Address that Iggins suggested doesn’t work(that would happen if your friend changed the default), then go to Start->Run, type cmd in the box and hit OK. A Windows console will pop up. Type ipconfig and hit enter. You should get one or more entries like this:

Ethernet adapter PROXY:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Advanced Network Services Virtual Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-14-22-B0-D6-8D
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.100.10.202
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.100.0.5

Look for an entry who description indicates that it’s for the Ethernet adapter(if you’re connected to the Linksys with a cable) or the wireless adapter(if you are connected wirelessly). The IP Address in the Default Gateway field(in the example above, 10.100.0.5) for this entry should be the IP address you connect your browser to.

5

Thanks for the replies.

I typed in 192.168.1.1 in the address bar (from my parents’ computer) and it did not recognize it and ended up doing a google search. I ran ipconfig. A black box appears for half a second and then disappears so I can’t use it. Any suggestions?

6

start → run → —> type cmd → now type ipconfig in the black box

the “default gateway” is the ip address for the router to access settings.

depending on the router it might be easier to push the factory reset button, (usually on the back) and rebuild the network from scratch.

7

Alright I got it. I was just typing in things wrong last night(probably the beer). I can access the settings.

Now my problem is that the wireless monitor on my computer(the computer I am trying to access the wireless network with) says that I am “connected to the access point but the internet cannot be found”…“because the network did not assign a network address to the computer.” Any quick answers here?

8

HELL YEAH!! I finally got it. I was entering the wrong passphrase into my computer. I was using the default password (the one to access the router settings), not the passphrase of the wireless network, which was different.

Thanks everyone for the help. I have about 30 online applications to fill out and the hour limit at the library was not cutting it.

9

You may need to consult with the ISP for configuring the service through a router, if you can find a setting for “clone mac address” that is often helpful as well with ISP’s like comcast who use it as a kind of authentication.

Linksys has an excellent support page and downloadable quickstart guides that could help you much more accurately than we can without alot more details.

10

Cool :cool:

11

It’s amazing how incredibly simple that was. It just makes it so much more difficult when you have no idea what the hell you’re doing.