Computer with Wifi Network Adapter Cannot Acquire IP Address

[BobH]

In the continuing saga of the recovery of my old Dell P4 computer, I have reinstalled WinXP Pro SP1 but have no connectivity yet. This computer uses and ASUS USB N-10 wireless network adapter. Before the system failed, this device worked without problems connecting to my Linksys Cisco router. I have changed no settings on the router. The router is connected to a different desktop (the one I'm posting this from) that uses MSE and Windows Firewall.

I was able to find and install the driver for the ASUS wifi adapter. I went through and set all of the settings needed for the adapter to connect to the router. I'm using WPA2PSK, TKIP, and a shared key that is set by computer algorithm. It is 32 bytes in length so I copy and paste the key.

The network is visible when I click on View Available Networks. I select it and click Connect. I then paste in the pre-shared key and the computer attempts to connect. It displays ACQUIRING NETWORK ADDRESS but apparently never does and the process times out without making the connection.

I need to make the connection in order to go online with IE to get updates for the OS and to get and install MSE (although I suppose I could download MSE to a thumb drive and install it on the other system from that device).

I'm probably too close to the problem to see the mistake(s) that I am making. Could someone, please, break me out of my fixed mindset and suggest how I might get around this problem?

TIA

[John Gray]

Try temporarily removing all the security from the router to see if the wireless adapter will connect to an unsecured network.
If it does, put all the security back and change the wireless access password on the router to something very simple, and see if it connects again.
Then change the password to something adequately secure, and hopefully all will be well.

[jonwallace]

Try temporarily removing all the security from the router to see if the wireless adapter will connect to an unsecured network.

Including MAC address filtering if you have that turned on...

Also, can you see the attempted connection in the router logs?

[PaulB]

I don't know very much about WiFi but here's a thought: does Windows XP SP1 support WPA2?

[Claude]

I'd download Win XP Service Pack 3 and install that before trying anything else.

[John Gray]

I don't know very much about WiFi but here's a thought: does Windows XP SP1 support WPA2?

I agree with Claude, and no, it doesn't! XP needs at least SP2 for WPA, so installing SP3 (remember that SP3 "includes" SP2 and SP1) will get you the best support, and what I suggested will probably be irrelevant.

[stuck]

Something else to consider. If your router is not broadcasting its SSID you may need to turn that on until the wifi adaptor has successfully connected to the router for the first time. Once it's made that first the connection you should be able to turn off the SSID broadcast again but the wifi adaptor will still connect.

Ken

[BobH]

Thank you all for your responses. They helped me to discover that the password that I was copying and pasting from a notepad file had been corrupted. After fixing that, the connection came up without a problem. Had I not disabled all security and connected straight away, I should probably never have questioned the router password error.

Without the wifi connection working properly, I could not go online. Without going online I could not download upgrades; so solving the wifi connection problem was the first priority.

Again, thank you for all your help. I am online again - with security - and diligently applying updates.

[John Gray]

Well done for your persistence!