[dave]

getting tinterweb at new crib this week, got a free wireless router with the deal but need to get a USB wireless receiver for the computer. anyone got any tips on this? is there any compatabilty issues (other than getting one which supports the speed of the router) or is it a case of just get whatever is cheapest?

laters .

[slackline]

What sort of computer are you putting it in, viz. laptop or desktop?

I'd be inclined to with a PCI wireless card if a desktop or a PCMCIA card if a laptop (although I'd imagine if it were a laptop its probably got one built in).  Means you don't tie up your USB ports which are used for other things, and if its a laptop then you don't have a cable dangling around if you want to move around.

Matching the speed will be sufficent, its likely to be 'g' which is 54Mbps

As for recommendations I've not used any myself, but as with most things you get what you pay for.  I'd recommend any of the major brands such as Linksys (my brother has a PCI in his desktop across the road to share my connection for a good year or two no problems, and at £13.99 it won't break the bank), Belkin, US Robotics, D-Link.

slack

[dobbin]

 

Linksys were bought by cisco some years ago, and they dont mess around. So anything which says linksys on it is ok. Belkin are cheap and cheerful. Netgear good too.

[dave]

word cheers for the headsup. I could fuck around with an internal card (appart from an available PCI slot do you need to do owt else when you fit them?) but assuming theres no speed advantage i may go USB since i've got no shortage of ports and to date i've only used a max of 2 at any one time. (I would deffo get a PCMCIA if i ever get the laptop running again since its only USB 1.0 anyway and you're right about having shit sticking out the back.)

[dave]

PS also in terms of security (i.e. WEP or WPA/2) is this just a software ting or is this in any way hardware-specific?

[slackline]

PS also in terms of security (i.e. WEP or WPA/2) is this just a software ting or is this in any way hardware-specific?

All software based.  WPA/2 is more secure than WEP.

[dontfollowme]

Dave,

I have a Ralink PCI wireless card which is quite smart. It has an aerial that fixes via a threaded socket onto the card which I sit on the base unit. When Windows start up it logs onto my network instantly.

[slackline]

appart from an available PCI slot do you need to do owt else when you fit them?

Missed this bit.

No all you need is a spare slot, and of course a screw-driver to disassemble the casing 

[dave]

yeah actually i don't know why i asked that question, i did work experience in a computer shop back in 1996. I was quite the wizard with a VL-Bus card.

[Jim]

Word, don't mess about with plug in dongles and the like. Just get a pci card
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(22281)Belkin-54MB-Wireless-Desktop-PCI-Network.aspx
cheap and easy to fit.
If this is for a desktop why not connect it via LAN?

[slackline]

If this is for a desktop why not connect it via LAN?

Maybe its not in the same room as the entry point for the cable modem?

[dave]

Jim although I do have loads of network cable at my disposal we've just moved house and so don't know where the computer is going to end up finally, and due to having to redecorate various rooms over the next few years I'm going to have to move shit around anyway, so not having to fuck about with cables is a plus. and i may get my laptop up and running again. its not that i'm averse to a wired network, i've just had one for the last 4 years.

[Jim]

also high gain arials for you router/pci card are cheap as well. I put one on my router and can get a usable signal in all the rooms on my laptop despite some of them are 2 floors up and through a solid brick wall or 2

[slackline]

also high gain arials for you router/pci card are cheap as well. I put one on my router and can get a usable signal in all the rooms on my laptop despite some of them are 2 floors up and through a solid brick wall or 2

I don't know if it applies to all routers, but the linksys one's I've used (WRT54g)  actually have a factory default of 42% for the transmission power, and theres no way of changing this in the default factory configuration.  Fortunately because they run a customised Linux distribution Linksys were obliged to release the source code and some enterprising people took this and added ton's of functionality to the router, including the option to set the transmission power to a specified level. 

The additional features added basically turn a ~£30 router into a piece of hardware that would normally cost hundreds.   And the modified firmware upgrades were free

[dave]

OK heres a question for y'all; The tinterweb i'm packing will be ADSL, so part of the kit they supply is the low-pass filter which splits off the data line from the phone line. The question is does this have to be fitted upstream of everything or do i need a filter at each point a phone connects to the line, or only a filter where you need to access the data line?

Of course I'll have just one router so theres no worry on the data side, its just the phone side i'm on about. Our phone line come into the crib and terminates at a standard square BT white box socket. Then there is an internal phone line installed going to at least 2 extra phone sockets which is hardwired (rather than by a plug-in splitter adapter thing) into the BT white box. so does the ADSL splitter have to go between this BT box and my internal phone line, or can i just use the ADSL splitter at any convenient socket on the internal line and still have a phone plugged in upstream? Or does it make no difference?

[Jim]

you need a filter on every phone that you attach.

[dave]

ok check it out i'm on - sort of. got everything set up right, but the connection drops every few minutes, then restarts again.

The router is a Netgear DG834 and the card is a Belkin F6D7000. I can access the router and everything fine but when the connection goes i can't get onto the router, so i assume the problem is with the wireless connection, not the internet connection (this seems fine, the router looks happy and can always connect). I've downloaded the lastest drivers adn shit for the card and its still the same. The router is in the front room and the computer is in the upstair back badroom, but the software says the signal strength is very good (and i'm also picking up the existence of another secured network in the vicinity) so it doesn't look like the problem is with the transmission of the signal physically speaking. i've also rebooted both the computer and the router.

I'm tempted to run a network cable between the router and the card to check but not sure what this would tell me - if the card is faulty it may or may not work anyway. Actually come to think of it the card seemed to be missing some of the internal packaging which makes me think they'd sold it before and someone took it back cos it was dodgy, in which case i'll get shut and get another model.

anyone else had anything like this or similar?

[dave]

P.S> i've reverted back to a network cable and everyting seems fine. so at least i can rule out the router as the problem i recon. probably a toss wireless card.

[dobbin]

It sounds very like an issue I have seen with WPA encryption on wireless APs. The reason WPA is more secure than wep is because the key is renegotiated every few minutes, and that ties in with your getting kicked off. The problem I had was fixed by a change to firewall rules.

[dave]

by "firewall rules" do you mean software firewall or the hardware firewall in the router? cos i ain't running a software firewall, and presumably the hardware one just deals with seperating the router from the outside world. please educate me.

some times it'll be fine for 5 or 10 mins, then others it'll drop every 40 seconds.  i'm not running any large microwave ovens or particle accelerators in the house. i think i have got the security set to WPA2-PSK on the router.

I've read somewhere that those belkin cards may come with the wireless mode set to 802.11b rather than 802.11g by default - could this cause the problem (other than just making the connection slow)?

[dobbin]

for us here, it was a software firewall on the laptop that wasnt allowing the wpa key exchange thing. You joke about particle accelerators, but it could be powerline related. does your witless card cable run past a mains power lead?

Also, are you XPsp2? NOt completely sure, but dont think WPA2 support is in XP until then. I will have to check that though...

[dobbin]

Right, I think I'm right. WPA2 support doesnt appear until you get to XPsp2, and even then you may need to install a WPS IE update for it to work properly.

So, either install update and try again, or change your rooooota to use WPA.

[dobbin]

Microsoft has released an update for Windows XP SP2 that provides operating system support for WPA2. You may have already installed this update. To see if it is installed, perform the following steps:

1.
 Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.
 
2.
 If the Show Updates check box is not selected, select it to turn on this setting.
 
3.
 Scroll to Windows XP Hot fix KB893357.
 
4.
 If this update doesn't appear in the list, download KB 893357 and install the update to turn on WPA2 functionality.

Try also upgrading your wireless driver.

[dave]

yo can probably rule out the firewall thing then. the version of windows i installed on the machine when new already had sp2 - will check that windows update anyway too cos even if i get a new card i'll probably want WPA2 on anyway. i don't follow what you mean about mains power leads - the card doesn't have any leads, its wireless :wink:

come to think of it, i think the signal dropping thing started before i enabled the WPA2 encryption anyway. if the connection was dropping because of some key change thing with the security, surely it wouldn't be able to reconnect itself right away (which is what it does, after about 5 seconds)?

[dave]

Microsoft has released an update for Windows XP SP2 that provides operating system support for WPA2. You may have already installed this update. To see if it is installed, perform the following steps:

1.
 Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.
 
2.
 If the Show Updates check box is not selected, select it to turn on this setting.
 
3.
 Scroll to Windows XP Hot fix KB893357.
 
4.
 If this update doesn't appear in the list, download KB 893357 and install the update to turn on WPA2 functionality.

Try also upgrading your wireless driver.

I've got a friend in prison who's copy of XP may or may not be entirely genuine, thus he can't get that update to install. He wonders how you can go about circumventing this, for academic interest only.

[dobbin]

Let's ask Barb :

Well Dave, thanks for your question, its an interesting one. We at Microsoft love criminals, hell - some of us actually are criminals! We all have flash cars and big houses we need to keep maintained, and we need your help, hence we introduce measures such as this to prevent you from installing pretty much anything useful if you haven't contributed to our pension funds. Unfortunately, whilst cracks do exist for the windows activation stuff, they wouldnt allow you to do updates still, and the only way I know for this to work would be for you to use a Volume license key (or VLK), but that would mean either more skullduggery to change to one, or a rebuild

So basically, if I were you, I would go back to WPA. No need for the patch then innit...

[dave]

no worries - my incarcerated acquaintance had the bright idea of using the works computer in his chain-link-making-shop (which has sa fully legit copy of XP) to download the update onto his prison-issue USB drive, and then installed that onto the machine in his cell no problems. He awarded himself some snout and a good slug of toilet cistern hooch by way of a celebration.

[slackline]

The hoops you have to jump through to get a free, up-to-date operating system 

[fatdoc]

firstly: everything slackline says is gospel, then man is a genius.

secondly: why not toss the whole WPA thing off? just get the roota to accept certain devices with MAC identity yuo have configured the roota to accept?
Previous threads have outlined the falability of WEP and to degree WPA..

that would be a quick fix / ensure you know what is really going wrong.

My bet is on anything belkin, coz their stuff is all toss IMO.

[dave]

don't worry i've already sacked off the belkin. a linksys is in the pipeline.

I would do the MAC thing but the problem is everytime i thinkabout it I get flashbacks to this guy.

[fatdoc]

you lost me there..

unless it's an embedded image (i'm on a windows 2000 dead dinosaur of a PC at work) cos I cant see them!

[dobbin]

articles in the daily mail will tell you to do three things to secure your wireless network. these are :

1: set a password (WEP or WPA)
2: MAC filtering (what the good doc said)
3: Turn off SSID broadcast

So, WEP is easy to circumvent - about a minute for anyone who know what they are doing, WPA can be cracked brute force only, WPA2 not PSK = much better. PSK is Pre Shared Key - or password. It will always be brute force crackable. The only workable standard (for a corporate) is to use certificates.

Mac filtering permits only authorised stations to connect, but its very easy to listen to the network and spoof the mac address of an authorised station. For an advanced (ish) user.

Turning SSID broadcast is only valid whilst noone is using the network. As soon as you connect, a sniffer will detect the traffic and its easy to get the SSID from there.

So, by all means do all three. it will lock out all but the most persistent attacker. The point to take from all this is that you should still run a software firewall on your computers, especially if you have wireless.