Hi,
I have recently purchased a new laptop and then upgraded to broadband (wireless) Having real problems with it. I have sorted out the broadband finally and been on the telephone all afternoon. I am now having problems getting it to work as wireless. It dosn't seem to work.
My computer has wireless LAN and at the moment I have to be connected through the ethernet cable - which is really difficult as my phone line in a very small corrider and not ideal! it says 802.11b/g wi-fi certified.

Do you have any idea whether I need to get an adapter for the computer?
any help is great.
Claire

what router are you using?

does that laptop find any wireless networks?

do you have to switch the wireless card on with one of the funtion keys?

I have a supanet wireless router which includes the modem so I am currently connected to broadband.
The laptop finds 2 wireless networks ( one of which is mine). I have a function key at the front of my laptop which is currently "on". Reading through all my information again I am wondering whether I need to get a wireless lan card? However I have an Acer computer and if this is the case I'm not really sure which type I would need to get? Thanks very much for your reply.

if the laptop is finding wireless networks it must have a wireless card

did you have a USB Dongle with your router?

does the network (yours) have security enabled?

No it didn't come with anything other than the wireless router. It says that it is an unidentified network - so I presume that it isn't. However I will find out as I know that you have to be careful with wireless signals etc...I

if connecting with cables how do you connect the modem to the laptop?

you may have to go to the routers homepage maybe 192.168.1.1

Hi,
I have already been to that routers page via internet explorer and filled in all the information etc..I am currently connected with the RJ-45 cable (ethernet) but a soon as I take it out the internet connection stops. To be honest all I wanted was to get broadband but was given the wireless router for free from the company.
Thanks for getting back to me though I really appreciate your help.

Do you know a really strange thing has happened. I acually turned off my router for about 10 minutes to see if I could. Wasn't sure if it had to be left on all the time or not. Well I tried to connect again and all worked fine and I just tried taking the ethernet cable out and guess what it is now working wireless!! I guess turning it off helped to solve the problem. Thanks so much for your help. I do have a final question,
It says that it is an unsecure network - do I need to phone them about this to check that it is safe? I have heard that you need to be careful with wireless??
Thanks again
Claire

Most broadband companies dont support the setup of router's, depending on the company, however, setting up a secure network is fairly simple, all you need to do is log into the router.. usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, user manual for router should tell you. Once logged into the router go to the wireless security tab and enabled secure network, and then select an encrytion type. Usually a 64 bit encryption is good enough, so selecting the WEP-64-bit hexadecimal option is good. Router should generate a "key" for you. Write down that Key code and then save your changes.

You will probably have to re-connect to your router by scanning for available wireless networks, and when you select yours it will ask you for a network key, this is where you enter the one you selected and will probably have to enter it twice. Make sure that you select the option to remember this network so the computer will not ask you for a password everytime it connects to that network connection

Thanks for getting back to me. I managed to select the 64 wep but it didn't give me a code. It just had 4 boxes underneath with
0x0000000000 in. I tried this as I thought it might be the code - but it didn't work. It was 10 0's after the ox. I presume this means that I need to put a code in there. Have you ever come across this before??
I have set up a password for the router so is that enough to use the wireless as a friend said that was all I needed to do to make it safe?