I failed...

[Kara]

Okay. My parents got my sister a laptop for Christmas. Naturally, they look to trusty ol' Kara to be able to set it up for her. No biggie, we got a laptop at home with our tax return and had no trouble setting up on our wi-fi.

I am now ready to scream, bang my head, throw the fucking laptop and the wi-fi router out the window, and cry myself to sleep.

The home PC here runs Vista. My father's laptop, which is already connected to the network, runs Vista. Sis's laptop is running Windows 7. It can detect the network, but says it can't connect. When I pull up the network on the PC and on the other laptop, it says "Private Network." The EXACT SAME network on the new laptop comes up as "Unidentified Network, Public Network." I don't know why, and I've spent hours trying to fix it with absolutely no progress at all.

My PC at home runs XP, and the laptop runs Windows 7. When we got the laptop, I ran through the setup BS and was up and running in no time.

Maybe it's all the stress I'm under right now, but I am literally shaking with frustration. The tutorials are useless (as usual), Microsoft's online troubleshooting is worthless (as usual), and I don't have a fucking clue why this isn't working. It should be working, but it's not.

Running a Linksys 802.11b router. It's the exact router I have at home.

I really just want to say "fuck it," and let them go through Dell support, but that just makes me a complete failure and would mortally wound my pride. Fuck Dell. I was trained inside and out on setting up networks back in my Circuit City days, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let a fucking Dell beat me.

Sorry, I'm still shaky and extremely pissed. Why won't it just work? All logic systems suggest it should be working, but it's not.

[Pedersen]

About to hit the sack, so not going to be able to continue. But here's some things to look at:

On the router, check the authentication type. If it's just 802.11b, it's probably just using WEP security. If so, at least one person has reported issues with Windows 7 and WEP. See this thread, and look for the post from Nov 13.

Looking at Microsoft's site, they strongly advise against using it. They do provide a means to make it work, though, it looks like. See this article for step by step.

Judging by what you've said, this is the single most likely point of failure. You may have to upgrade everything to a newer wireless router that can handle 802.11g and/or 802.11n, which will also provide WPA2 options, and those will work nicely with Windows 7. I also know that you can't do that tonight.

I hope it can be made to work. Good luck.

[barcode]

^What he said, plus...

# See if you can try to set the built-in wireless adapter to a B/G compatible mode (it's probably in an N config right now). This is because of the previously mentioned WEP problems, among others.

# If this is the venerable BEFW11S4 router (firmware should be up to ~v1.53 IIRC), then you can disable WEP/WPA altogether and run it "open". After doing this, make sure that you have "Remote Router Management" turned OFF (so that laptops can't change any settings, but wired PCs can), and to add the MACs of all wireless clients to the "Wireless -> Security -> MAC Filter ("Allow" mode)". This will open the router, but restrict access to only the wireless clients you allow.
A MAC number looks like: AA BB CC DD EE FF, and should be printed somewhere on the card or bottom sticker.

*NOTE: The v1.5x firmware update should allow for WPA. Check it. Since WEP can be hacked in a matter of minutes, use it only as a last resort or if compatibility issues arise (older stuff like I have lying around). Also, MACs can be spoofed, so using the filter option is no guarantee that everything's okay. The best option at the moment is WPA2 with MAC filtering.

# If you can only use WEP, then use a common HEX key - stay away from the passphrases! I've found that my Linux (unicode) boxes have a different idea as how to use the passphrase to generate the expected code, which results in a massive fail. Punching in the HEX value as a key leaves nothing for interpretation, so it works the first time out. It's easy if you use Hex "phrases" like "DEADBEEF11". (They fixed this with WPA/WPA2, as I've never had any fail - yet!)

When I pull up the network on the PC and on the other laptop, it says "Private Network." The EXACT SAME network on the new laptop comes up as "Unidentified Network, Public Network." I don't know why

That's how MS does things (badly!). Actually, Vista is identifying the TYPE of network, as it asked you when it first found it. Private network means it is either a home/SOHO behind a firewall/NAT (which it is), or a larger company's intranet. If you use the local Starbuck's, then it would be a "Public Network", and extra settings for privacy and firewalling would be automatically enabled, since it would be more prone to security issues than the Private one. Win7 hasn't been told WHAT you're trying to connect to (yet), so it may just show it as "public" until told otherwise during the connection script.

Isn't networking fun?

barcode

[Kara]

Bwa, hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

*cue lightning*

God.... I forgot my family is COMPLETELY clueless and has NO IDEA what the hell they're doing when it comes to technology, even on a basic level. So I spent hours trying to guess the username and password so I can change the security settings on the network.

And then I started to wonder why in the hell the other laptop, which my father was using to browse teh interwebz in the very next room, was not showing under devices on the network. Just the PC and the router.

And I stopped thinking so hard about it...

So, of course, it finally occurred to me to use the default user name and password.

2 minutes later, not only is my sister now on the network, but I also got my father's laptop off whatever unsecured network he's been using for MONTHS and connected to the family's (now protected) network.

Now I'm ready for the nice men in the white coats to take me for a ride. I've been told there will be cake.

WHEEEEEEE~

[Andara Bledin]

I've been told there will be cake.

Nooooo!!! The cake is still a lie!

However, congrats on realizing you needed to dial your expertise back a couple of notches to reach down to the level that was needed.

^-.-^

[technical.angel]

Kara, if it makes you feel better, let me give you a rundown of my adventures with my parents' new Blu Ray player....

1. Got everything set up and the HDMI cable plugged into the player and the TV.
2. Sat down on the couch, pressed Power on the remote.
3. Got up and plugged the power cord into the Blu Ray player.
4. Sat back down, pressed Power on the remote.
5. Put the battery in the remote.
6. Pressed the Power button... repeatedly.
7. Took out the battery and removed the plastic shrink wrap from said battery.
8. Pressed the power button. SUCCESS!!!
9. Programmed the cable box remote for the Blu Ray player.
10. Tested the buttons, and find out I can't select the 3 left most options on the menu.
11. Reprogramed the remote.
12. Repeated steps 9, 10 and 11 for about 10 minutes.
13. Caught a stray brain process and try selecting the errant options with the Blu Ray remote.
14. Realized those options are actually grayed out, as I've yet to put in a disc.
15. Realized that I put the scissors I used to open the box back in the kitchen, and can't stab myself through the temple with them.
16. Finally get to eat the lunch that was given to me at the start of the process.

[lordlundar]

It's always the small stuff that gets you and causes the 4 hours worth of work for an otherwise simple project. Don't feel bad, it's happened to all of us at some point.

[Teskeria]

*sends puppycats to snuggle Kara* (my daughters cats act like dogs. They Sit, Stay <usually>, beg and come on command. They also follow you from room to room like a puppy. Current are indoor only. Last indoor/outdoor would walk to bus stop with us, and meet the home bus after work.)

[Ben_Who]

Oh yeah. The old "Consider the user" response to tech support.

Dad: "This won't power up."
Me: Well, it could have a bad power supply or a bad fuse, or the power supply might be set to the wrong voltage. If you can hear the power supply fan, you might have blown out your motherboard. Is the monitor working?

Mom: "This won't power up."
Me: Did you check to make sure it was plugged in?

Love, Who?

[telecom_goddess]

This is sorta related...it involves my computer . Now keep in mind we live in an apartment that's wired in a crazy way for electricity. The circuit box has several breakers dedicated to the heaters, two for the kitchen (and I think living room), one for the washer/dryer, and ONE covering three bedrooms and two bathrooms
This means you can NOT run the air conditioner in the summer and use a hair dryer or straightener....or it trips. Well right now it's winter and that is not an issue, and everything was hunky dory until a few days ago. The circuit was tripping randomly (I thought) causing us to lose power in all three bedrooms and both bathrooms...no hair dryers running, I wasn't doing anything ...just BLAM. Which of course slams my computer off ....me no likey cause it's bad for it. And it's the only desktop I got (laptop is still being a pain in the ass and I haven't had time to really deal with it). So I do things like leave the computer off..no trips. Turn the computer back on, it trips again . Leave it off, no trips, turn it on, it behaves for a bit then trips. I"m like "WTF???" Come to find out my middle daughter was using a space heater in her room cause the room heater was out and she didn't tell me, and would do things like use a straightener at the same time. I told her to stop that and we need to get the wall heater fixed cause again it's on it's own circuit and won't disturb the circuit the rest of her room and ours are on.

So it was something simple, and I"m like thinking I need to replace the power supply in desktop or something...I even blew dust out of it to see if that was the cause. Sigh.

[dalesys]

...I need to replace the power supply in daughter...

Adjusted for my experience.

[roothorick]

This is sorta related...it involves my computer . Now keep in mind we live in an apartment that's wired in a crazy way for electricity. The circuit box has several breakers dedicated to the heaters, two for the kitchen (and I think living room), one for the washer/dryer, and ONE covering three bedrooms and two bathrooms

That's pretty typical for pre-80s buildings actually. The rationale is, most devices are less than 100W right? Doing the math, 100W at 125V = less than 1A, so building for 15A gives us more than 15 devices, that should be more than enough to light five rooms and power a TV or two. The A/C was just never factored into the design -- otherwise you'd have a special designated outlet (possibly something bigger than a 5-15 -- our condo has two 6-15s) with its own breaker.

Unfortunately, correcting that isn't as simple as swapping a breaker -- the breaker is matched to the wiring, and the wiring probably can't handle more than 15A. Rewiring a house is pricey, and most places have ordinances that make DIY outright illegal.

[BeeMused]

ARRRGHLLL don't get me started on crazy wiring... in the flat we rented when I still was a kid the wiring was sorta grown over some 50 years. When we wanted to connect an extra lamp to one junction box, we looked at the wild jumbling knot of wires (Colour coding? What colour coding?) and decided NOT to touch it. So we called in a master electrician. He looked, probed a bit here and there, scratched his chin: "Yanno, I'd rather not touch that, I'm not sure if I can get that back to function again."