Wireless G to Wireless N Question

[BobH]

My router failed and I had to buy a new one (Linksys E1000 Wireless N MIMO). The old router used Wireless G. The laptops are G and the wireless adapter for my wife's desktop is G.

I found and ordered a Wireless N PCMCIA card for the laptop. Neither the new router nor the card have arrived yet. I'm only anticipating their use. Since the laptop has wireless G built in, I was wondering if I will have to turn it off or it it will be compatible with the wireless N card. My guess is that I will simply use the hardware switch to turn the G off and the hardware wizard will enable the N card. Anyone?

Also, I was wondering if there are any settings in the PC's that I will need to change to run the wireless N. Again, I'm anticipating and trying to learn (because the last week has been pure Hell with hardware, signal, and software problems compounding together). I found the installation instructions for the router I ordered on the web. From all I read, the CD comes with a setup wizard that will take care of all settings, but that seems a bit too good to be true. I am aware of SSID and wireless encryption issues. The setup wizard will supposedly gen a unique and anonymous SSID. I plan to continue to use WPA2-Personal and the same very strong key that I had generated by an encryption key generator some years ago. What I don't know is whether there are TCP/IP or other options that would be affected by a hardware change and a move to faster wireless technology. Finally, the setup wizard instructions say that it allows the user to create a key on a flash drive to transport setup to other devices after setting up the first one. Should I anticipate any problems with this?

TIA

[StuartR]

When you configure your new card you should be able to just accept the defaults and connect to your existing network. You can use your existing SSID and strong password.

Devices that support 802.11n also support 802.11g and 802.11b
Devices that support 802.11g also support 802.11b

[BobH]

Devices that support 802.11n also support 802.11g and 802.11b
Devices that support 802.11g also support 802.11b

Thanks for the response, Stuart!

I'm aware that there is what I call backward compatible capability with the newer technology (Wireless N) encompassing the capabilities of the older technology (Wireless G, B). What I'm trying to do is to gain the additional speed and distance of Wireless N using my older computers. If I understand it correctly, to do so requires the new router with N and new N-capable adapters in all the machines that operate using the wireless signal. Because the laptop has a built-in wireless G adapter - one which I can turn on or off with a hardware switch - I wondered if there were any other potential hardware, software, or settings conflict points that would affect my upgrade.

I don't recall - and cannot find - any settings through CP options that tell my systems what wireless protocol to run; so I'm assuming that the differences are resolved in the hardware upgrades (or there is something I should know). That then caused me to wonder whether the encryption functioned differently in any way that would make me want to consider changes.

I take it from your response that the SSID and WPA should work without changes.

[StuartR]

Yes, the SSID and WPA-PSK key should both work fine.

The setting for which wireless protocol to use is in the device configuration for the card. Here, for example, are the properties of the network adapter on the laptop where I am typing this response.

abgmode.png

nmode.png

Each network adapter has slightly different advanced parameters for this.

[BobH]

Thank you, Stuart!

I really appreciate your taking the time to respond. Taking the time to do the screenshots was most generous and very helpful.

Thank you, again!! Do your prefer or or both and ?

[StuartR]

I've already had a couple of this evening, but a would go down well.

[BobH]

Here's a baker's dozen for you!








Thanks again!

[StuartR]

I shouldn't have eaten them all at once

[BobH]

Well, Stuart, I would offer a Pepto-Bismol smiley if we had one. (As you are in Londinium, that might be an unfamiliar product name. If so, think of a viscous bismuth concoction in pink.)

Are you up for another wireless connection challenge? My new Linksys E1000 router came today but I've not been successful at getting it installed. The setup options are very like those for the Linksys WRT54XXX that I'm replacing; so I think I understand them and have them set correctly. In fact, after manually viewing available networks and choosing the new SSID, the wireless adapter systems say that I have successfully connected with excellent signal, but I cannot access email or the web.

Care to try again for another pint (or 2 or 3) and more choccies?

[StuartR]

The most likely option based on the limited information you have given us is that the Wireless network is working fine but the new router is not connected to your cable modem properly.

Can you provide a bit more information about:

• Exactly how is everything connected?
• Exactly what has changed since it was working (did you remove the old router and replace it with the new one?, did you reconfigure any of your PCs? etc.)
• How many different PCs have successfully connected to the router?
• What operating system you are running on your PCs and what does it say about network connectivity?

[BobH]

Hi Stuart!

You are a braveheart to continue with this. Thank you very much!

Lets get the platform out of the way first. I run WinXP Pro SP3 fully updated on 3 of the four computers. The fourth is a Linux netbook used only to surf and read email. Two desktops are Dell Dimension systems running P4 processors. One - the one I'm typing from - connects via ethernet cable to a Linksys E1000 router connected to a cable modem. Both the cable modem and the router have been newly installed since the onset of the problem on Monday of last week (12 April). The laptop is an HP 530. All the systems are fully populated with RAM and have varying HDD capacity. The only use I make of the router - at present - is to share the ISP gateway. With the exception of the netbook, all systems run the same Firefox and Thunderbird software. The netbook runs different versions of the same software.

The history goes like this. On Monday of last week, I began having problems with my laptop. I could not get a good connection to the old Wireless G Linksys router. The onset of the problem was soon after I had been running some housekeeping chores - CCleaner - to rid the laptop of old and temp files and to clean up the registry. The first symptom was that I could not make an automatic wireless connection after rebooting. I had changed none of the wireless options or security settings at that point.

After going through all the diagnostics I knew to do, and after googling on the ethernet connected desktop, I decided that I might have an ISP problem. After speaking with their help desk, the tech said that he was seeing problems with signal strength on the input to the cable modem and seeing intermittent problems on the port to the router. He suggested that I change out he router and he scheduled a visit by field techs to check my physical connections and signal delivery. Changing out the cable modem did nothing to change the problem. The guy with the truck (whoops, it's a van or lorry in the UK ) found no problems.

With the problem persisting and no solution despite pursuing the symptoms on the Mozilla forum, I posted here in the lounge. No doubt I described various symptoms in my posts depending on where I was in my diagnostic thought process at the time. After noticing the lights on the old Linksys flashing in an unusual pattern, I decided that replacing the router was next in order. The new router moves me from wireless-G to wireless-N and anticipation of the new gear prompted questions that I posted in this thread.

The new Linksys E1000 arrived yesterday and I spent last evening installing it and trying to get it to interact with the system as expected. I ran the CD setup first as suggested, with the other equipment disconnected as suggested only making connections as prompted by the Setup Wizard on the CD. Linksys ships the gear with defaults in the firmware including a WPA security key and SSID and other variables which I can't enumerate. I was unable to make a wireless connection despite knowing of the new SSID because I didn't know the security key. Linksys now refer to it as a password when they also have real password to access the router firmware options. Knowing that I would need to use the correct keys to bind a wireless TCP/IP session, and not wanting to change the keys in the router, I went online to the Linksys chat support and learned that the password displayed after running the CD setup is really the WPA key. I then tried to connect from the laptop using that key.

I was never able to get the laptop to make the connection automatically - after choosing from the list of available wireless networks - as it had done before the onset of problems. I was eventually successful in making a connection but it showed as having weak or no connectivity. After additional repetitions of the process, I was able to get the laptop to connect using the new SSID and security key. The CP showed an excellent connection (from 2 feet away) but I was never able to make a software connection. While I'm probably not stating this correctly, my perception is that the physical communications layer was connected (and possibly the logical connection layer) but the application layer returns only errors.

When I try to retrieve email, I get the message (in Thunderbird): "Failed to connect to server <servername>(where it names my ISP's POP server). . . . " When I try to reach a website (in Firefox), I get a message whose exact text escapes me at the moment but indicating that no connection was made.

I spent a couple of hours last night on the phone with Linksys phone support but made no progress. I did allow the tech to remotely access my system to check router settings. The only change they made was to enter a new and entirely different WPA key.

If you can suggest a wiki or how to or even diagnostic tools that would help, I shall be eternally grateful. I have exhausted what little knowledge I have about the issue. I've checked the wireless adapters in the laptop and the other desktop using device manager to see if there was any indication of problems. There were none. I also checked the wireless options in CP and found them set to a mix of B and G wireless which is the maximum they are capable of. I have ordered a new PCMCIA card supporting 802.11 N but it has not yet arrived.

And now I've told you more than I know about all this.

Again, thank you!

[StuartR]

Gosh, that sounds challenging!

What evidence do you have that this router (or the one you replaced) have a good internet connection via the cable?

[BobH]

The fact that the ethernet cable from this desktop is connected to the router which is connected by ethernet cable to the broadband modem which is connected via BNC cable and is working as it should.

I have no evidence pro or con that the wireless router is broadcasting a proper signal although I do see the SSID on the laptop and the other desktop when I look for wireless networks. I cannot tell, however, whether there are any vagaries in the signal. I also don't know whether the options on the wireless client systems are properly set. I might have trampled on something in trying to troubleshoot and fix the connections.

[StuartR]

I still don't see why you think this is a wireless problem.

Here is what I have understood so far...

• The router stopped working for an unknown reason
• You replaced this router with a different router and configured the SSID and password
• The new router still did not allow you to connect to the Internet

My best guess is that this is NOT a wireless problem, but is a problem with connectivity to your ISP.

[BobH]

Hi Stuart!

I might agree with you except that I'm using this desktop to connect to my ISP through an ethernet cable connected to the new router which is connected to the cable modem by an ethernet cable. It seems to me that this proves that the ISP signal is OK and that the cable modem is OK and that the router is at least passing signals using cable technology. That leads me to believe the problem has to do with wireless connectivity especially since none of the 3 wireless computers that share this ISP gateway will connect.

Your statements are otherwise correct. What confounds me is that I can sometimes establish a connection according to the CP wireless network display panels on the wireless system, but I am then unable to get the email client to access the ISP or the browser to connect to a url. The behavio(u)r is the same on all 3 wireless systems, 2 of which I had NOT run CCleaner. Having made a cabled connection successfully, having replaced a questionable cable modem with a new one, and having replaced a router that was acting a bit squirrelly with a new one, I've deduced that there must be something wrong with the wireless setup in that, perhaps, the settings in the firmware in the router are somehow incompatible with the settings in the wireless client systems.

Regards,

Please attack my logic. I'm afraid that I've been too close to this problem for too long to be able to see the perfectly obvious.

[StuartR]

Thanks, that is much more clear. I do agree that this shows you have a problem with the wireless part of your setup. I assume that you have similar problems with all your wireless connected PCs.

Can you open a command window on one of the problem PCs and type
ipconfig /all > ipconfig.txt
then attach the file ipconfig.txt to a post

Make sure that the PC is showing that it has a good wireless connection first.

[BobH]

Hi Stuart!

I spent about 3 hours on the phone today with Linksys tech support. While I learned some things about this particular router and the software that supports it (and the firmware embedded in it), I was not able to resolved the problem. After trying about every possible combination of settings imaginable, we gave up and I'm sending the new router back and Cisco/Linksys are going to replace it. We determined that TCP/IP is having some problems with the DHCP functions. Although I can make a connection and verify it with ipconfig, a ping to the router using the correct IP address fails. The router never recognizes and responds to the ping.

Another interesting issue was uncovered as well. With wireless security disabled on the router - and with WEP security and its attendant key or passphrase - I could establish a connection with the wife's desktop system but never with the laptop. I was never able to make the wife's desktop client connect using WPA or WPA2 despite trying several keys.

I also suspect that there are problems with my laptop that I am yet to uncover. I connected it using an ethernet cable to the router without making a LAN connection successfully. I then swapped the ethernet cable from the laptop to the cable modem and was unable to connect. At least I'm further along diagnostically than I was before.

My next step will be to create an up-to-date slipstream CD and see if I can do a repair reinstallation of WinXP. I can't do it with my factory CD because it is an SP2 version and all my client systems have been upgraded to SP3. I have to have a CD of equal or higher SP level to do any Windows installation or I will have to go through the entire reinstall process. I'm saving that for the last resort.

Again, I'd like to thank you for your help. Sometimes having someone knowledgeable to state your diagnostic steps and results to is the magic bean to making progress. In this case, you have been my magic bean.

Cheers!

[StuartR]

The last magic bean I came across got swapped for a cow!

[BobH]

Well Stuart!

Thought I would report my progress.

Today, my daughter brought me her old laptop. I had to do a bit of clean up and defragging - and still need to save and delete about 50 GB of 'stuff' she left on it - but after setting the network connection SSID and key, it connected to my new router on the first try. Before she stopped by, I started a reformat on the hard drive on my laptop (the one I just did a Windows reinstall on without reformatting). After a couple of hours of formatting and reinstalling from the WinXP Pro SP2 Cd then installing the SP3 update, I was able to enter the SSID and key on the system and connect to my new router. I'm using WPA2 Personal on the router and both laptops connected without a whimper. Tomorrow, I'm going to tackle the desktop client that connects wirelessly.

I cannot explain why the Linux netbook and desktop units would not connect if the problem was with the OS on my laptop. Tomorrow will tell the tale.

I also received the wireless N PCMCIA card over the weekend and installed it after reloading Windows. Although the difference might be from the OS reinstall, I can tell a remarkable difference in speed now. In fact I believe it runs much faster than the other laptop which has a G adapter and a faster processor.

[StuartR]

It's great to hear that you are making progress.

I suspect that the performance improvement is mostly from the OS reinstall, but it's good to get everything as fast as possible.