HELP! Wireless?!

I like to think I know a fair bit about computers. but I have learned that only means computers and not networking. I tried to learn but combing through countless forums I realised no matter how many times I see tcp/ip dhcp mac address, I still have no clue what they do.

Now to the problem. Sorry for the novel size that it is. But I wanted to make sure I had every detail laid out so I wouldnt have to think about what I did and forget something or the order. It is all listed chronologically.

Wireless Problems

Note: Thougout I would Sometimes get connected to network icon, connected to network w/internet icon.

4-5 Years Ago
OLD HP Pavilloin Ze Laptop (XP)
Set up Linksys router(WRK54G) w/ removable network card.
When connecting and reconnecting I was told all I needed was this ( wirelessSSID + Pass + WEP Key)
Connection was consistent only losing connection about twice every half hour, but instantly reconnected

December 07
Laptop died
Bought New Laptop HP Pavillion dv6000 series w/ broadcom wireless & Vista OS
Aimless wandering Could not get to the point to put in password.
Fount it. Put in password. No internet.

Research problems with Vista and wireless.
reg edits found.SAVE ORIGNAL REG. Apply edits. Wireless for about 10-20mins. After hibernate/sleep, No internet. After restart. No internet

Finally find HP Network Assistant. Set up good. Get Wireless settings. Internet for about 5-10 mins. After hibernate/sleep, No internet. After restart. No internet

Remove reg edits.

Janurary 08

Manually set up through windows

****Recently have gotten warnings from my ISP that bandwith is too high.almost 20GB. Also found out router is giving off 1 unsecured signal, and one secured I could not connect to either one.****
Looked over the 192.XXX.X.X stuff renamed wireless SSID.

Try HP Network assitant again. This time it says it does not support my router, but never asked about it when I previously used the assitant.

Back to 192.XXX.X.X

Changed to G only. from mixed
Enabled MAC address: from under router
reset router press and hold 5 sec.
Tried to reverse changes could not get in with password
tried admin admin got in. everything reset to what i believe was default

enabled WEP security, lost alot of signal from 90+% to <10% from unsecured signal.
signed into secured. problem solved I have internet. Lose it after 30 mins.Back after 5mins. Now No connection.

but now I still have the unsecured signal being broadcast and I need ot get rid of it.
Also, I need to set a password and username when i log into 192.168.1.1 now


****In relation to bandwith, I talked with the guy and he asked if i had any P2P i said yes, he told me to disable it. I have, utorrent, but have not used it
this month. Nor do I have the actual .torrent files. do the trackers steal bandwidth?
My question is, what I have been doing alot is streaming videos. On average 1 42-45min good quality episode of poker a night id say.
(gone through 2 seasons is high stakes in 2 months dec/jan). We have only just recently recieved the warnings so I dont see how much the streaming would have effected bandwidth.

This is all boggling my mind. Is there anyway I can just start everything over again, or can someone shed some light on my situation with a simple fix my ridiculously novice network skills have overlooked.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME IF YOU READ THIS

 

Sound like you are using that amount of bandwidth on your connection, who knows whether your bandwidth also includes uploads, in which case anyone leeching off of the .torrent you downloaded will be sapping your bandwidth. (Side note torrents aren't P2P). and would strongly suggest getting an unlimited bandwidth package for ease of mind. Secondly i have noticed that both XP and Vista have grave difficulty in re connecting to a known access point after hibernation and it takes a restart and a cache flush to get a reconnect. Strange and I don't believe M$ has sorted this yet. Secondly, you will probably find a higher connection signal if you use WPA-TKIP/AES on the router for encryption standards. Good luck

 

I would take a close look at your energy management. In CP and advanced port properties there are flags that power your wireless down to save battery. Also inside your router you have a lease time for your lan users. If set to 30 min it will dump you at that intervil. I would set this to never or 12 hrs.

Also some routers can not take the continous load of P2P. The heat generated will cause them to turn off or drop power till they cool down. For P2P use a wired connection more reliable. Or use a deciated AP, these cost as much as a wireless router but can take the heat/load. Or greatly restrict your bandwidth it can use.

 

just restrict the bandwidth priority in the torrent client. lol

 

Ok so, even if I dont have utorrent program opened, nor am I seeding any torrent files, They can still affect my bandwith?
We had unlimited, then downgraded it in september cuz we werent using as much as we thought we were, i was just wondering more about the bandwidth usage process.

My signal is near perfect its just accessing the internet thats the bigger problem. So would the WPA encryption make an unseen difference?

 

I see the advanced properties on my network adapters but all they say is enable and disable. I dont know which ones to change. I dont think they are what you're talking about. Can you tell me how to get to those settings.
I checked the lease time and it is set to 1 day.
I dont intend to use any nor do I have p2p programs on my computer now that I know utorrent isnt. So that isnt really a big issue.

 

Some hardware has the not all, so it's possiable yours does not. Check your Energy management Control Panel. You should have settings for battery use and AC power, make sure the Wireless is not allowed to go in to sleep or hibernation.

 

Found the battery settings.
Ok so I took the laptop to a friends house connected to their network (was given WEP key). Restarted and viola I had wireless internet! Alas it would only last for one hour untill the card disabled itself, but by then I had to leave. The signal was good, but after the hour my manual switch on the laptop it self, still in the on position, has a a blue light which means on and an orange light which means off. The orange light was on but the switch was on.
Any Ideas??

 

sorry, utorrent does not autostart by default so you would HAVE to have the program open for them to retrieve the packets from you.

 

Sounds like something is still turning it off via software. Did you try repair to see if if would correct the problem.

 

Alienwarez : Thats what I originally thought. I hardly use it so I dont worry too much about it.

blue68f100: No I didnt try to repair it cuz I had to leave. What other thing could be turning it off?

Another question. Since I have such an old router.(linksys wrk54g) about 5 yrs. Would buying a new router fix my internet problem, as I can still connect to the network.?

 

If you have a v3, it was the best router Linksys ever made. All v2-4 are very good. I would make sure it's not full of lint. Then I would install the dd-wrt firmware. It should fix all of your firmware problems, makes it more stable. Now if it's a hardware problem it will not fix it.

 

It does not have a version on it so i assume v1. When I look under the router all it says is WRK 54G for model #.

Do I install DD-WRT v24 RC2 ?? from the website? If not can you point me in the direction to where I may find it? If its wrt instead of wrk would it make a difference if I DL the wrt firmware?

 

You have the option of std http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/dd-wrt/downloads.html Or you can try one of the newer Standard with SP2. Im currently running a v5 beta release in my buffalo. Make sure you read the specific install instruction for your model. You need to confirm which hardware model you have, as the install changes with v5+. This info should be in the admin pages if not printed on the bottom.

 

sorry for totally noobing out on this one but..
Im on the site and looking at the supported models. I dont see WRK, so I ask would it make a difference if I DL the wrt firmware and use it on my wrk?
Also, you said it should be in the admin pages. Of what ?? where would I find those. I have already looked at the bottom of the router and thats where I got the WRK 54G from. samething?

 

Do you know what version of the WRK54G you have?

I have found conflicting reports as to whether it will work with dd-wrt.

I read that it has a Marvell chipset....so it is not supported.

Confirm you have the latest firmware, if that does not work, see about replacing this old model.

 

I am assuming v1 maybe, only because it doesn't have a version on it.
I have also seen that wrk is not supportive of wrt firmware.
I know I dont have the latest firmware, It is 1.55 I believe and I have heard theres firmware as high as 1.56 and 1.58 but I cannot find them.

This was basically my last stitch effort of fixing it myself before I shell out the dough to get a new one.

 

Connect to linksys/sysco site and search for wrk54g. The first to links I brought up had another option for firmware. Click on the firmware link it should get you to a download page.

 

The only firmware for my version is 1.55.02 and I checked my current version and it is the same. Its working right now and I have no idea why. Im so confused.

If it continues to crap out on me I shall look into getting a new router, probably Dlink this time. Untill then thanks alot blue68f100.

 

In most cases when things hangup, you want to power off all of your hardware, modem, router and pc's. Then bring them up one at a time allowing them to be fully up before powering the next. Like Modem, router and last pc's. In most cases it will take about 1 min for each device. You can normally tell by the leds.