getting tired of trying. . .

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surfermama

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Aug 21, 2013
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My husband has an old (2002) Dell laptop, I think Latitude. He took it to a shop (discount electronics?) and they sold and installed an upgrade to the RAM to 1gb as well as a wireless adapter, since it did not have a wireless card, installed it for him and in the shop, it connected right up to the internet like a champ. Brought it home, where we have another laptop and 2 phones wirelessly connected to a netgear router, every day, all day with not problems whatsoever. The Dell with the adapter sees and connects to the network, but will not get on the internet. WTF?
 
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First be very sure you have SP3 applied to windows XP. This was the point the added support for WPA2 encryption. If you have followed the recommendations your router is using WPA2 for the security and the old versions of windows xp does not support it.

Sounds like you have a newer wireless card. You will get that warning when the card can run faster than the USB. It is not the best thing to do but when its all the machine has you don't get a choice. All this means is although the card itself can likely do say 50m the usb bus cannot so it will slow down. This likely will cause no issue since a old machine will have trouble even processing data that fast. Your problem is much more fundamental.
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jackson1420

jackson1420

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First off - why didn't that shop tell you to not waste money upgrading to 1gb of RAM in a (nearly) 14 year old computer? 1gb of RAM isn't even enough for your OS and some browsers and if you want to listen to music or especially video files online or offline then good luck. I hope installing that wireless adapter wasn't too pricey because you can get decent USB adapters for about $15

Try using nslookup to see if you can perform DNS lookups

Set your DNS server to one of Google's DNS servers. (i.e. 8.8.8.8)

Try pinging your local gateway or other pcs in your home network first.

Release and renew your IP address
 
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surfermama

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Aug 21, 2013
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Right, I am sure that I set those newer devices up however it was the easiest (auto whatever). When I am able to get that far that it asks me for the wifi key (password) and I put in the one that I use (it came with the router), I get a message telling me that it has to be 104 bit (cloudy memory here, but something similar) and some other thing that I don't understand, but sounds vaguely familiar. Leads me to believe that the password that came with the router won't work and that I need one in some other language or numbers. I am with you so far, but how would I go about retrieving these numbers (or letters or whatever they might be)?
 
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surfermama

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Aug 21, 2013
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surfermama

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Well, Jackson1420, I wasn't with him when he did it, so I can't answer that, but I do know that the told the guy that he really only wanted to use it to access/research geneaology stuff, and I'm pretty sure that he just sold him a cheapo wifi adapter, and believe me, he is tight, so he didn't spend much. . . however he knows less than I do, which is pretty bad. So bad in fact that much of your answer went right over my head. . . I am not familiar with "DNS servers" and "DNS lookups" and "pinging gateway". None of that crap makes any sense to me as I have only the most basic understanding of networking. I totally appreciate the time you spent in answering, but you may as well be speaking French (and I do not speak French). Sorry.
 
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jackson1420

jackson1420

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Are you using Windows XP?

If so, I am positive that your wireless adapter may not support the encryption or authentication to connect.

Settings your wireless to the 802.11 standard your home network uses will resolve that issue but will slow down everything else in the network. This is because even if you have all Wireless-N devices. You put a G or B device and everything gets dropped to the slow speeds of G or B.
 
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surfermama

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Aug 21, 2013
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ok, jackson, I do understand this last answer you gave, and it is pretty much what I feared. Yes, the old Dell POS does indeed use windows XP and I was beginning to suspect that therein laid the problem. So what would be a "G or B device"? Would that be the Dell POS laptop with the wifi adapter/antenna attached to it. another issue, in fact maybe "the" issue is that the laptop only has one USB port in it and every time something is plugged into it, it gives the message that it is not a high speed USB, or something to that effect. When I plug the new adapter into it (the slow USB), then the entire device (adapter) becomes slow, right? So even if I got one of those USB hub things (that give you more USB holes), if it is plugged into the old slow hole, they will all be slow. Am I right? So would there be any way around this, aside from making him go into the room where the router is and plug a network cable straight into the router. I haven't tried that yet, but it would certainly eliminate the use o the wifi adapter.
 
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davedurg09

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Make sure your router is running in B/G/N mode and trying disabling security on it altogether to see if the laptop gains internet access, if so then the laptop does not support the current wireless security protocol that you are using as mentioned by the poster above.

If that does not work then just take a hammer to the thing and be done with it, ITS 11 YEARS OLD LOL.
 
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Martell1977

Martell1977

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Oct 26, 2010
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You mentioned that the wireless adapter wants a 128-bit key (you said 104, but its actually 128), that tells me that the likely issue is that the security settings are not matching the routers. If you are using the code that came with the router, it is likely a WEP key. A computer shop that knows what it is doing would not be using WEP and more than likely WPA or WPA2.

You need to go into the wireless adapters software and change the security type to match what your router is using and then input the key again.



 
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jackson1420

jackson1420

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A device using Wireless G or B is likely what was installed to the Dell. Since these are older - it is likely the adapter doesn't support the encryption or needs advanced configuration which I can't explain in my allotted time (sorry!)

One UNSAFE option as a test you can try to test with is to turn off your encryption, set wireless to mix mode to support G or B devices and leave your wifi password blank.

The USB port should be fine - even if it is the slower USB 1.1 standard - you will still get enough speed for a USB wireless adapter.



 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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First be very sure you have SP3 applied to windows XP. This was the point the added support for WPA2 encryption. If you have followed the recommendations your router is using WPA2 for the security and the old versions of windows xp does not support it.

Sounds like you have a newer wireless card. You will get that warning when the card can run faster than the USB. It is not the best thing to do but when its all the machine has you don't get a choice. All this means is although the card itself can likely do say 50m the usb bus cannot so it will slow down. This likely will cause no issue since a old machine will have trouble even processing data that fast. Your problem is much more fundamental.
 
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surfermama

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Aug 21, 2013
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Well, jackson, the Dell did not have any wireless, hence the new adapter. It is supposed to be compatible with XP as well as with the netgear router that I have. I am saving all these answers to use when I get home to where I can work on the thing. However I am beginning to like the hammer answer from davedurg better all the time, but dave, we are indeed frugal (read cheap!) and bless his heart, he was looking for the cheapest way to do this. He hasn't spent a lot of money on it so far, but we are getting close to the "we could have bought a cheap new laptop and not had these issues" point. Since I only have time to jack with it when I get home from work, my brain is usually fried before I even begin to fool with this thing and then it just becomes annoying and irritating and I just want to toss the thing in the river. Good thing we don't live on a river. I appreciate all the suggestions, though and will give them the old college try this evening. Maybe I can make a hero of myself before he gets home from work. . . well, I'm a hero if I just fix dinner, so if all else fails, I just get in front of the stove.
 
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surfermama

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Aug 21, 2013
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Well, jackson, the Dell did not have any wireless, hence the new adapter. It is supposed to be compatible with XP as well as with the netgear router that I have. I am saving all these answers to use when I get home to where I can work on the thing. However I am beginning to like the hammer answer from davedurg better all the time, but dave, we are indeed frugal (read cheap!) and bless his heart, he was looking for the cheapest way to do this. He hasn't spent a lot of money on it so far, but we are getting close to the "we could have bought a cheap new laptop and not had these issues" point. Since I only have time to jack with it when I get home from work, my brain is usually fried before I even begin to fool with this thing and then it just becomes annoying and irritating and I just want to toss the thing in the river. Good thing we don't live on a river. I appreciate all the suggestions, though and will give them the old college try this evening. Maybe I can make a hero of myself before he gets home from work. . . well, I'm a hero if I just fix dinner, so if all else fails, I just get in front of the stove.
 
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