Making Linksys WRT54G Router and WPC54G LapTop card work w..

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Great job...very useful.

"Riley M. Sinder" <rednblu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:50ba1b04.0404011855.64f8fc9c@posting.google.com...
> I compile these notes from many sources here in one place in
> acknowledgment and gratitude for the many posters who gave me clues
> from which I learned when I was stuck the many times over the last few
> days installing this Wireless network to use WPA encryption. I will
> tell you what I did. Of course, I did many uninstalls and
> re-installs, but I will give you the straight-through scenarios and
> successful installs as I remember them, assisted by my notes. In a
> follow-up posting to this summary, you may please make any corrections
> where you find them useful.
>
> ==WRT54G Router==
>
> I brought up the XP LapTop first with a direct Ethernet wired link
> from the LapTop Ethernet port to the second Ethernet port on the
> WRT54G router. I connected the "Internet" port of the WRT54G router
> to the DSL modem, and the DSL modem was already connected to the phone
> line. Previously, I had gotten the link from the DSL modem to the
> phone line to work by connecting the XP LapTop directly to the DSL
> modem and signing onto the ISP Internet service using the XP Network
> Connections utility available under Start, My Network Places, View
> network connections, File, New Connection.
>
> The initial URL to the WRT54G router was http://192.168.1.1. For the
> installation phase, I used only the 1) Setup, 2) Wireless and 3)
> Status tabs on the Router menu.
>
> My ISP uses PPPoE, so under the "Setup, Basic Setup" tab of the WRT54G
> router, I got a successful connection to the Internet by 1) selecting
> PPPoE for the Internet Connection Type and then 2) entering the
> appropriate User Name and Password and 3) clicking the Save Settings
> button at the bottom of the screen so that the changes took effect.
>
> Under the "Wireless, Basic Wireless Settings" tab of the WRT54G menu,
> I 1) selected Wireless Network Mode = G-Only, 2) typed RouterCentral
> into the SSID field, 3) selected Wireless Channel = 6, and 4) Wireless
> SSID Broadcast = Disable. And clicked the Save Settings button.
>
> Under the "Wireless, Wireless Security" tab of the WRT54G menu, I 1)
> selected Security Mode = WPA Pre-Shared Key, 2) selected WPA
> Algorithms = TKIP, 3) typed MySecretPhrase in the WPA Shared Key
> field, and 4) typed 5 in the Group Key Renewal field to speed the
> initial connections of the wireless cards during setup. I later
> increased the Group Key Renewal field to a higher number under the
> theory that a higher number for Group Key Renewal would reduce the
> network overhead for encryption.
>
> Under the "Wireless, Wireless MAC Filter" tab of the WRT54G menu, I
> selected 1) Wireless MAC Filter = Enable and 2) Permit Only = Permit
> only PCs listed . . . . Then I 1) clicked the Edit MAC Filter List
> button and 2) keyed in the MACs of my wireless cards. Whenever I made
> an error in entering the MAC of a wireless cards, I could temporarily
> allow the card with the MAC entry in error to connect by temporarily
> Disabling the Wireless MAC Filter; then I could copy and paste the
> correct MAC from the access under the Wireless Client MAC List button.
> Under the "Wireless, Advanced Wireless Settings" tab, I left all
> fields with their "Default" values.
>
> Under the "Status, Router" tab, I could verify the connections made
> from the WRT54G router through the DSL modem to the ISP provider.
> Under the "Status, Local Network," tab and the DHCP Clients Table
> button, I could see at the various stages of the install which
> wireless cards had connected to the WRT54G router. Once, when I had
> encryption turned off and SSID broadcast set to on, I caught an
> "interloper" signed onto my fledgling wireless network--probably a
> lawyer in the office next door. She did no harm, but I kicked whoever
> it was off my network by "Deleting" the interloper's DHCP lease with
> the "Delete" button. I will inquire of who I think it was to get her
> MAC address if she would like to use my network because I think I can
> trust her.
>
> ==WPC54G card under XP==
>
> I just plugged the WPC54G card into the slot, and XP did the install
> of an initial driver for the card, including asking for the Linksys
> CD. But I had to install a newer driver from
> http://www.linksys.com/download/. I forced the selection of the
> downloaded driver by the following: Start, Control Panel, System,
> Hardware, Device Manager, Network Adapters, Right click on Wireless-G
> Notebook Adapter, Update Driver, Install from specific location,
> Browse to directory of the unzipped downloaded driver, Ok, Finish.
> At this time, I disconnected the Ethernet cable from the XP LapTop.
> And rebooted.
>
> Do NOT install the WRT54G card software from the card CD.
>
> I used the XP utility for managing Wireless cards. I got to the XP
> Wireless card utility by the following: Right click on the xed out
> "Wireless Connection" on the Right Task bar notification area, click
> on View Available Wireless Networks, Advanced, Check the Use Windows
> Check box at the left top of the window which turns on the Add button,
> Click the Add button near the left bottom of the window. Then I
> entered the following fields on the "Association" tab: 1) Network name
> (SSID) = RouterCentral which was the name I entered in the SSID field
> of the WRT54G router, 2) Network Authentication = WPA-PSK, 3) Data
> encryption = TKIP, 3) Network key = MySecretPhrase which is what you
> entered in the WPA Shared Key field on the WRT54G router, and 4)
> reenter MySecretPhrase in the Confirm Network key field. I made no
> changes under the "Authentication" tab. After Ok and Ok to clear the
> dialog boxes, the card established wireless connection in about a
> minute.
>
> ==WPC54G card under 98SE==
>
> First, I turned off Norton AntiVirus completely so that it would
> neither start or load the icon to the right in the task bar
> notification area on reboot.
>
> Then I installed the software from the WPC54G card CD--both the
> Linksys software and the Odyssey software. There are serious
> contentions between the Linksys installation software and the 98SE
> operating system. I got several error messages, and I had to
> reinstall the Odyssey software a few times, as I will describe below,
> just to correct for the contentions between the installation software
> and the 98SE operating system. Among other things, the Linksys
> installation process overwrites a part of the 98SE operating system,
> in particular the Linksys installation process overwrites the version
> of the iphlpapi.dll file that the Odyssey software needs. In the
> succeeding paragraphs, I will describe how I got it all to work
> despite the serious contentions between the WPC54G card installation
> software and the 98SE operating system.
>
> After I installed the WPC54G card CD software with some errors as I
> described above, I plugged the WPC54G card into the slot, and 98SE
> made its attempt to install the drivers for the WPC54G card. There
> were several requests for the 98 installation CD, but the only
> installation CD I had handy was the Second Edition upgrade, on which I
> could not find the requested files--because I believe the requested
> files are compressed into .cab files, at least on the Second Edition
> CD.
>
> As a stopgap measure, I used the Find function, under Start, Find,
> Files or Folders, to search my C:\Windows directory with the "Include
> Subfolders" box Checked. There were about four separate requests for
> files, that each time I could Find in the C:\Windows directory, and I
> keyed the name of the appropriate directory into the box of the
> installation dialog.
>
> Then I pulled the most recent WPC54G drivers for 98SE from
> http://www.linksys.com/download/. And I forced the driver install
> from the directory of the unzipped driver file by Start, Settings,
> Control Panel, System, Device Manager, Network Adapters, Right click
> on Wireless-G Notebook Adapter, Properties, Driver, Update Driver,
> Next, Display a list of all the drivers in a specific location, Have
> Disk, Browse to the directory of the unzipped downloaded driver file,
> Select Isbcmnds.inf, Ok, OK, Select Wireless-G Notebook Adapter, and a
> series of Nexts to begin the Install. Then, there was another series
> of screens in which I had to Find parts of the 98SE operating system,
> such as Locproxy.exe which LOOKS like Iocproxy.exe. These files, as I
> remember were in either C:\windows or C:\windows\system.
>
> Next, as described on the Odyssey troubleshooting site at
> http://www.funk.com/subsections/odytechnotes.asp under "Error Messages
> and Codes," "Odyssey has detected a missing component . . .", I
> recovered from the overwrite of the iphlpapi.dll file in the 98SE
> operating system as described in the "Restore the Iphlpapi.dll File"
> section of the Microsoft document at
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823256.
> Basically, I did Start, Run, sfc, Select "Extract one file from the
> installation disk," Browse to c:\windows\system\iphlpapi.dll, and
> Click start. Then, in the "Restore from" window, I browsed to the
> directory of the 98SE update installation CD where the .cab files
> are--which on my system was the E:\win98 directory. I had searched
> with Windows explorer to find the directory with the .cab files on the
> 98SE Upgrade CD.
>
> After the restoration of the overwritten iphlpapi.dll file as
> described above, I uninstalled Odyssey and reinstalled Odyssey by
> running the LinksysClientEnglish.exe file in the OdysseyClient
> directory of the WPC54G installation CD.
>
> Then I ran the OdysseyClient software by Start, Programs, Funk
> Software, Odyssey Client, Odyssey Client Manager. Then I did the
> following: 1) Click Adapters, Add, Select Wireless-G Notebook Adapter;
> 2) Click Networks, Add, Network name (SSID) = RouterCentral which was
> the name I entered in the SSID field of the WRT54G router, Association
> mode = WPA, Encryption method = TKIP, Passphrase = MySecretPhrase
> which is what you entered in the WPA Shared Key field on the WRT54G
> router, and Ok; 3) Connection, Check Connect to network, Select
> RouterCentral from the DropDown Box, and Click the Reconnect button.
>
> You are operational within a minute, if God in her secular holiness be
> willing.
>
> Riley M. Sinder
> Rednblu@ix.netcom.com