what to use for wireless lan setup?

[[AK]Bribo]

Originally posted by [AK?]Hale
You may want to enable WEP or Kerbarous (sp) to keep the weasles out. You should be able to do that on both the access point and the card. Kerbarous is more of a pain to get working (in my limited experience), and WEP will keep the casual drive-bys out.

However, using an encryption mechanism will impact your performance as your CPU will be burning cycles doing the encrypt/decrypt thing for every packet. We took a big hit here where I work when enabling SSL on our web servers until we put in a co-processor to specifically handle the encryption processes.

[the wolffman]

well, at one point, the wireless connection was great, and the labtop could do anything that required internet access. now, the labtop can't access the internet, even though the access point and the cardbus are communicating. i was able to access the access point's "web-based" configuration menu from the labtop, but it won't access microsoft's site, yahoo's site, or any web site for that matter.

both the access point and cardbus have the latest firmware, drivers, and software applications installed. their manuals for the products weren't useful for troubleshooting.

i can accept not being able to share files across the computers, but internet access for the labtop is a must. any advice?

[The Wraith]

Yes. A real network infrastructure.

[Slaughter]

have you checked all the mundane Windows stuff? i.e. IP addresses, Wrokgroup names, etc. etc. IP address is usually quite crucial on the Windows Aspect of networking, at least in my experiences.

[The Wraith]

Layer 3, layer 2...you all need the learn the differences, implications, and architectual aspects. It pains me to read most of this thread. You don't need layer 3 for communication within the contiguous collision domains. Yes, collision, not broadcast domains.

[the wolffman]

what should i use? a router? an access point? a wireless pcmia card? how would i get started on setting up a network? i am completely new to this field of technology.

what stuff would i have to check, slaught?

[Slaughter]

first of all, try disabling zone alarm.. if its not that.. go to your network connections and then to the point of access for both computers. Make sure Microsoft Networks, flie and printer sharing, Q0S packet Schedualer and TCP/IP are enabled.. check the IP addresses on both computers by clicking on there access once.. make sure that subnet mask's are the same, and the first three numbers of the IP address should be the same since they are originating from the same network. If they are not, all you have to do is go to properties on tcp/ip and manually configure the IP and Subnet Mask.

Hope it helps.

[Hale]

Can you ping your DSL modem from your laptop?

[the wolffman]

still no go, slaught.

hale, since the modem's internal, it cannot be pinged. however, the labtop pings the access point's ip just fine.

[Slaughter]

dang, I'm sorry man.. thats about the extent of my verbal networking knowledge.. anything else I have to see to fix..

[The Wraith]

My pain increases.

One day, you'll learn that when I say your bridge doesn't provide connectivity across collision domains...you'll listen.

[the wolffman]

after downgrading the access point's firmware, the labtop was able to use my internet connection again. thanks to you all for helping.