Need expert wireless advice

[Repo Man]

My aunt has a daughter who lives next door. My aunt hasn't gotten any sort of internet service for the computer I put together for her in the two years she's had it. Her daughter has DSL, with a combination DSL modem/wireless router. She had mentioned maybe getting her mom's computer on their DSL with a wireless NIC. Her roomate had used a laptop at my aunt's house, and the reception was good.

As a Christmas present, I bought one and installed it. It went fairly smothly, but I didn't get anywhere until I set a fixed IP. Once I did that, it would connect, with good signal strength. But no internet.

The DSL service they have comes with a software disk that has mostly unnecessary junk. I had a friend here who used it, and it bogged down his machine. He was connected with a standard NIC, so I ran the network wizard, and entered his user name and password, and he was able to sign on without their excess baggage. But I couldn't figure out a way to enter the user name and password with the wireless connection. I decided that I had to use the SBC Yahoo software after all, since it must have a way to enter a user name and password with a wireless NIC. But my cousin's roomate didn't know where it was, and didn't feel like looking (quote: "It isn't my problem you wanted to do this today."). I live close to four hours drive away, and no one will be able to do this in my absence.

Out of desperation, I even called up Dlink's technical support, hoping that somehow the wireless card was configured incorrectly. But we ran through everything, and he suggested I call the ISP since the card seemed to be working properly. It was the day after Christmas, so I doubt they were open. And I was sure they would tell me to install the software that they include in their DSL package. And I was out of time because I had to drive home.

Is there a way to set up a wireless connection that includes a name and a password with Windows XP alone, without any third party software?

[surlyjoe]

well, the software isnt nessecary, but you will need a password to log onto the SBC modem to get to the page to register it. the new modems will do PPOE but you gotta get em set up first try (I think this is right) the modem IP should be 192.168.0.1 if its at the default. sbcyahooreg@sbcglobal.net and sbcyahooreg for the pass to logon to the modem, then go to https://sbcyahooreg.sbcglobal.net and setup his username and password, then log back into the modem with his NEW user and pass and the HID on the botom and you should get on... maybe.. then you wont need to run the sbc software at all, just a router or switch to split up the line

[barneygumble742]

i recently had the same problem. i have the westell 2100 modem (isp is bellsouth).

i went into the dsl modem's config page (192.168.1.254). right now the modem and router are NOT connected. it has a pppoe setting and the modem asked for my user/pass. but now i got a netgear wireless router. inside the modem i changed it from pppoe to bridged setting. that is the ONLY change i made.

i connected the dsl modem to the router. i went into the router's page (192.168.1.1) and netgear has their own connection wizard. it took me through and detects that i have a PPPOE connection even though my dsl is bridged.

inside the router i put in my user/pass and enabled wep and i'm done.

it took me like 3 days and made me feel like a dummy because i tried to configure it from my laptop because my desktop has so many things wrong with it. when i configured it from the laptop, i used windows''s own wireless connection manager. what to keep in mind is that every time you update your router, it resets the connection to the pcs/laptops. so i had to manually connect to the router again and go into the config page. originally i tried to make the changes when i wasn't even connecting to an access point (router).

inside the router, look for "dsl status" and make sure you see an outside ip address (not the 192.168.x.x). if you do see the outside ip address, then the modem is running fine. if you see 0.0.0.0, then the router is working fine but no internet.

good luck,
barneygumble742