Wireless Network Help?

Hardware and technical stuff
1

We’ve got a wireless network here at home. It doesn’t use WEP, but it is locked down by MAC addresses.

I got a new PC and I can’t connect to the network. I can see the network just fine, but it just times out trying to connect. I’m using the same wireless NIC as I was in my old PC.

It just times out at “Waiting for the network.” This seems like it’s a matter of the network refusing to respond to my NIC; but beyond that I have no idea. :( :(

anyone have any ideas? We’ve already removed my MAC address from the router’s list of authorized addresses and re-added it.

2
  1. does it work with no encryption?
  2. if so, does it work with mac filtering disabled?
3

The network’s not using encryption or anything of the sort; it’s just locked down by MAC addresses.

The last time I had this sort of thing happen it was with the 360 - it could see the network but not connect… all I had to do was get the roommate to add the MAC address to the router. But we verified that the router has this machine’s MAC address and it works.

I’m this close || to just booting up the old machine and seeing if it works.

4

Kind of a long shot, but does the network adapter have the MAC address that you think it does?

I suggest turning off the MAC filtering and trying to connect. If you can’t connect, then there are obviously other problems. If you can connect, then it’s a good chance to verify the MAC address.

  • Alan
5

I’m going to ask the roommate to turn off MAC filtering here in a minute (gah I hate not owning the network).

When I put the wireless adapter into my old machine it worked just fine. :(

6

I’m going to ask the roommate to turn off MAC filtering here in a minute (gah I hate not owning the network).

When I put the wireless adapter into my old machine it worked just fine. :(

7

Put it back in the old machine and:
Start,Run,cmd
Type “ipconfig /all”, write down MAC (Physical Address) and IP Address, Gateway, Subnet Mask, DNS Server.

Move to new machine, repeat process and compare.

Do they match?

8

FIDGAF: Already did that. I should have made it clear that I’m not a total newb in this stuff; I can handle just about any normal networking problem - but as far as I can find there’s no feedback or logging or anything of the sort for the actual wireless connection.

The MAC addresses match. Nothing else does of course, becuase the machine can’t connect to the network to get any of that stuff.

9

It’s not something like the driver installed a wireless management tool that hinders/conflicts using the Windows interface, is it?

10

Jeff,

Maybe the router is saving additional information about the host to prevent MAC cloning? What happens if you turn off MAC filtering and try to connect?

11

If that doesn’t work, you could give me the new computer and keep using the old one. :)

12

danminal: Hrm it did install LInksys’s connection software, but it seems that’s disable-able (which is what I did). I’ll go ahead and uninstall it though, just to be sure.

13

Updating my BIOS fixed the problem. Thanks for all the suggestions in this thread!

ASUS’s site sucks, today was literally the first time I could get through to DL the BIOS without it all timing out on me. :(