Problems with Linksys WPC11 and Inspiron 1100
 

We have three Dell laptops: an Inspiron 3500 running Win98, an
Inspiron 5000 running Win2K, and a new Inspiron 1100 running WinXP
Pro. All three have a Linksys WPC11 talking to a Linksys wireless
access point, in turn connected to the Internet via DSL. I have had
great troubles getting the new Inspiron 1100 to reliably maintain an
Internet connection, while the other two PCs have worked flawlessly.
What happens is that the 1100's Internet connection seems to drop,
requiring a reset of the wireless access point.

When we originally got the Inspiron 1100, I attempted to load Win2K on
it, as I've never had a problem with this OS nor with the Linksys
wireless PC card on this OS. I could not get it to work, apparently
because this system doesn't have full Win2K support. I couldn't get
the Linksys Configuration Utility to work with the Linksys card and
driver under Win2K. Under WinXP, it was tricky to get the
configuration to work -- WinXP wanted to handle 64-bit WEP, while the
Wireless Access Point was using 128-bit.

Two questions. Has anyone succeeded in getting Win2K to work fully on
an Inspiron 1100? Has anyone solved the problem of getting WinXP on
an Inspiron 1100 to maintain its internet connection with a Linksys
wireless system?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Bob Schor

i think you answered your own question when you started talking about wep...
you say it was tricky to get the configuration to work with your router set
to 128bit wep and your wpc11 set to 64bit... but in fact it doesn't work.
the short answer is to set the router as well as all of the workstations to
64bit wep. look at the very bottom of this linksys support page for you
wireless nic:
http://linksys.com/support/support.asp?spid=62#general

"Bob Schor" wrote in message
...
We have three Dell laptops: an Inspiron 3500 running Win98, an
Inspiron 5000 running Win2K, and a new Inspiron 1100 running WinXP
Pro. All three have a Linksys WPC11 talking to a Linksys wireless
access point, in turn connected to the Internet via DSL. I have had
great troubles getting the new Inspiron 1100 to reliably maintain an
Internet connection, while the other two PCs have worked flawlessly.
What happens is that the 1100's Internet connection seems to drop,
requiring a reset of the wireless access point.

When we originally got the Inspiron 1100, I attempted to load Win2K on
it, as I've never had a problem with this OS nor with the Linksys
wireless PC card on this OS. I could not get it to work, apparently
because this system doesn't have full Win2K support. I couldn't get
the Linksys Configuration Utility to work with the Linksys card and
driver under Win2K. Under WinXP, it was tricky to get the
configuration to work -- WinXP wanted to handle 64-bit WEP, while the
Wireless Access Point was using 128-bit.

Two questions. Has anyone succeeded in getting Win2K to work fully on
an Inspiron 1100? Has anyone solved the problem of getting WinXP on
an Inspiron 1100 to maintain its internet connection with a Linksys
wireless system?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Bob Schor

i'm curious as to where in XP does it handle the wep. We have xp home,
and find no such option. is it a feature of xp pro? our linksys card wep
is solely controlled by the linksys config utility and we use 128 bit.
one thing we had to do with xp is to turn off the internet firewall as
it gives very erratic connections through the router. we use another
software firewall instead and it works better. Although it may not make
a difference in your case, we also manually set the IP addresses of the
computers so that our other Win98 computers boot up faster.



--
A & L

Support your local PJ

Thanks. I had, of course, read this information from LinkSys. My
problem does NOT have to do with WEP. I repeat, I have three Dell
laptops running (respectively) Win98, Win2K, and WinXP. All three
have the same WPC11 (though they are of different "vintages"). The
problem is not related to the particular WPC11, as I can swap these
cards and the problem persists.

To restate the problem, all three machines can connect to the access
point without any problem. The access point, in turn, is connected to
an "always-on DSL" line that does not need PPPoE. The Win98 and Win2K
systems stay "live" forever. The WinXP system will work for 10-30
minutes, then the connection to the Internet seems to drop (if one
runs the LinkSys configuration utility, it shows an excellent signal
to the WAP, but no connection to the Internet). To fix this problem,
I have to run upstairs and put the "reset" button on the WAP.

Again, this ONLY happens on the Dell Inspiron 1100 running Windows XP.
I believe this is a "feature" of either the 1100 or of XP.

Bob Schor

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 02:16:15 GMT, "Christopher Muto"
wrote:

i think you answered your own question when you started talking about wep...
you say it was tricky to get the configuration to work with your router set
to 128bit wep and your wpc11 set to 64bit... but in fact it doesn't work.
the short answer is to set the router as well as all of the workstations to
64bit wep. look at the very bottom of this linksys support page for you
wireless nic:
http://linksys.com/support/support.asp?spid=62#general

"Bob Schor" wrote in message
.. .
We have three Dell laptops: an Inspiron 3500 running Win98, an
Inspiron 5000 running Win2K, and a new Inspiron 1100 running WinXP
Pro. All three have a Linksys WPC11 talking to a Linksys wireless
access point, in turn connected to the Internet via DSL. I have had
great troubles getting the new Inspiron 1100 to reliably maintain an
Internet connection, while the other two PCs have worked flawlessly.
What happens is that the 1100's Internet connection seems to drop,
requiring a reset of the wireless access point.

When we originally got the Inspiron 1100, I attempted to load Win2K on
it, as I've never had a problem with this OS nor with the Linksys
wireless PC card on this OS. I could not get it to work, apparently
because this system doesn't have full Win2K support. I couldn't get
the Linksys Configuration Utility to work with the Linksys card and
driver under Win2K. Under WinXP, it was tricky to get the
configuration to work -- WinXP wanted to handle 64-bit WEP, while the
Wireless Access Point was using 128-bit.

Two questions. Has anyone succeeded in getting Win2K to work fully on
an Inspiron 1100? Has anyone solved the problem of getting WinXP on
an Inspiron 1100 to maintain its internet connection with a Linksys
wireless system?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Bob Schor

Possible longshots related to your Win XP problem:

http://support.microsoft.com/view/tn.asp?kb=302853


http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;317485



"Bob Schor" wrote in message
...
Thanks. I had, of course, read this information from LinkSys. My
problem does NOT have to do with WEP. I repeat, I have three Dell
laptops running (respectively) Win98, Win2K, and WinXP. All three
have the same WPC11 (though they are of different "vintages"). The
problem is not related to the particular WPC11, as I can swap these
cards and the problem persists.

To restate the problem, all three machines can connect to the access
point without any problem. The access point, in turn, is connected to
an "always-on DSL" line that does not need PPPoE. The Win98 and Win2K
systems stay "live" forever. The WinXP system will work for 10-30
minutes, then the connection to the Internet seems to drop (if one
runs the LinkSys configuration utility, it shows an excellent signal
to the WAP, but no connection to the Internet). To fix this problem,
I have to run upstairs and put the "reset" button on the WAP.

Again, this ONLY happens on the Dell Inspiron 1100 running Windows XP.
I believe this is a "feature" of either the 1100 or of XP.

Bob Schor

check out this article and post again to report if it does or does not work
solve the problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;814123

"Bob Schor" wrote in message
...
Thanks. I had, of course, read this information from LinkSys. My
problem does NOT have to do with WEP. I repeat, I have three Dell
laptops running (respectively) Win98, Win2K, and WinXP. All three
have the same WPC11 (though they are of different "vintages"). The
problem is not related to the particular WPC11, as I can swap these
cards and the problem persists.

To restate the problem, all three machines can connect to the access
point without any problem. The access point, in turn, is connected to
an "always-on DSL" line that does not need PPPoE. The Win98 and Win2K
systems stay "live" forever. The WinXP system will work for 10-30
minutes, then the connection to the Internet seems to drop (if one
runs the LinkSys configuration utility, it shows an excellent signal
to the WAP, but no connection to the Internet). To fix this problem,
I have to run upstairs and put the "reset" button on the WAP.

Again, this ONLY happens on the Dell Inspiron 1100 running Windows XP.
I believe this is a "feature" of either the 1100 or of XP.

Bob Schor

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 02:16:15 GMT, "Christopher Muto"
wrote:

i think you answered your own question when you started talking about
wep...
you say it was tricky to get the configuration to work with your router
set
to 128bit wep and your wpc11 set to 64bit... but in fact it doesn't work.
the short answer is to set the router as well as all of the workstations
to
64bit wep. look at the very bottom of this linksys support page for you
wireless nic:
http://linksys.com/support/support.asp?spid=62#general

"Bob Schor" wrote in message
.. .
We have three Dell laptops: an Inspiron 3500 running Win98, an
Inspiron 5000 running Win2K, and a new Inspiron 1100 running WinXP
Pro. All three have a Linksys WPC11 talking to a Linksys wireless
access point, in turn connected to the Internet via DSL. I have had
great troubles getting the new Inspiron 1100 to reliably maintain an
Internet connection, while the other two PCs have worked flawlessly.
What happens is that the 1100's Internet connection seems to drop,
requiring a reset of the wireless access point.

When we originally got the Inspiron 1100, I attempted to load Win2K on
it, as I've never had a problem with this OS nor with the Linksys
wireless PC card on this OS. I could not get it to work, apparently
because this system doesn't have full Win2K support. I couldn't get
the Linksys Configuration Utility to work with the Linksys card and
driver under Win2K. Under WinXP, it was tricky to get the
configuration to work -- WinXP wanted to handle 64-bit WEP, while the
Wireless Access Point was using 128-bit.

Two questions. Has anyone succeeded in getting Win2K to work fully on
an Inspiron 1100? Has anyone solved the problem of getting WinXP on
an Inspiron 1100 to maintain its internet connection with a Linksys
wireless system?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Bob Schor