Wireless connections

Are a royal pain in the arse.

I (eventually) got a wireless hub/router/modem/doobrie from Virgin, who
forgot to sent the dongle thing for the computer end f things (I ordered 2,
got none).

Then I got another delivery with one dongle (I ordered 2, got 1) and a week
later I got my final piece of the puzzle.

Installed the "Super Hub" in accordance with the destructions, installed the
dongle on computer one and...... **** all.

I installed the 2nd dongle on computer 2 and... **** all.

Switch dongles, re-boot everything including the Super Hub and... **** all.
No indication of any communication between hub and dongles. Wired, the hub
works great (30 meg promised, 30 meg delivered) but absolutely **** all when
I try to go wireless.

Ordered a 2nd cable today and Virgin can have the fucking wireless dongles
back, unless of course I'm doing something wrong or not doing something I
should, which wouldn't surprise me.

 

Heh!

So what network name did you give the hub router thingy?
Can the computers see it when you scan for wireless networks?


Did you set up encryption such as WEP[1] or WPA?
Did you get the correct key on both the computers?

Does the computer connect and then obtain an IP Address such as 192.168.0.x?
Or sit there complaining of limited conectivity. i.e. none.


[1] Don't use this one. It's about as secure as locking your house with a
bolt on the outside of the door in most cases.

 

Wireless enabled in the router setup? As above: is a networkrange been
set? Try setting it to 192.168.254.10 to 192.168.254.20. Less chance of
possible interference from neighbouring routers. Do the dongles pickup
anything at all by the way (other networks in the vicinity).

 

WTF? The ip address ranges have **** all to do with interference from
neighbouring routers. OTOH my experience is if you let the virgin
super hub auto switch channels it will hop up and down causing
problems (for example my pc would connect ok but the iPhone would
loose and regain the connection rapidly.

 

In keeping with the spirit of the day

The default one written on the hub.

It can't see anything wirelessly, only when it's wired.

No key needed, the instructions for the dongle just say "Plug in and it'll
self install (it does on one computer, but not the other), then press the
button on the hub until it flashes (around 2 -3 seconds) and then press the
button on the dongle until the LED lights up and you're connected", but
that's not the case. Follow the instructions and the dongle tries to connect
(the LED flashes on the dongle) but before any connection has been made, it
times out (2 minutes and it times out every time with 1 second left to
complete). Plug the hard wire back in and it's instantly communicating at 30
meg.

It does **** all apart from timing out a second before the green
"processing" bar reaches the end.

I could live with that if it connected, coz I could happily **** about with
settings that deny access to others once I've got access myself.

 

Yep, done with the help of the nice Scotch virgin man who walked me through
all the setup and gave me a heads up on how to get the best wireless
performance. That would be realy nice if the cunting thing would actually
connect wirelessly, but it won't.

They pick up dust, but **** all else and not a lot of that either coz
they're constantly being swapped from computer to computer..

 

Beav spoke:

Hah! Orange wireless routers have the same thing - doesn't work very well on
them either.

Just get something like this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/260206
and either wire it in and use it as an access point[1] or junk the supplied
trash.

[1] which is what I ended up doing for someone who couldn't get the Orange WiFi
working.

--
Rob_P
UKRM(at)indqualtec.co.uk
uppercase(d) BBIWYMC#1 BOG#11? MRO#31 IBCDBBB#1(kotl)
FJ1200, CCM130 Benelli Cabriolet (gone)
Looks like Rab C Nesbit.

 

Hmm, I had no real problem with my Orange box, but it does need a
WEP security key to be set up on all devices. Not many ports though, so I
got a Netgear switch to plug all the upstairs stuff into. Haven't got a
Ubuntu laptop to work with it yet but that seems to be a Ubuntu issue --
keeps trying to apply the WEP key as a WPA one.

I am sometimes tempted to try to get my Netfear(ToBAGO!)
modem/router/access-point running on the Orange connexion; it is more
configurable than the LiveBox. It also has WPA whereas the LiveBox only
has WEP.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Why would I need to buy that? The Hub I've got works perfectly when wired
and I suspect it's the other end of things where it all goes tits up when I
attempt to go wireless, Going (or rather staying) with wires is the most
obvious solution and a new wire to my 2nd computer costs £6.95 and I only
need it because my original wire is 2 metres short.

The supplied trash cost me 60 fucking quid btw, so it's going to be sent
back.

 

See if there's a way to manually set WPA security keys on everything
instead of pressing the button. You should be able to configure the
router end from a wired machine, then each of the devices you want to
connect from within that machine's network settings.

Those auto set-up things are frequently more hassle than they're
worth.

 

I'd suggest before doing so, you forget trying to use the one button
pairing method and check out the manuals for the proper way of linking
up. The Virgin Superhub is a perfectly reasonable piece of Netgear
kit and I have one working fine with a variety of hardware wirelessly.

 

On 02/05/2011 16:02, Ben wrote:

It seems to be a bit chronically short of RAM, and has, IMHO, an
inability to support reasonable NAT timeouts, or numbers of connections.

OTOH, I don't use mine for wireless, so can't comment on that bit

--
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116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 GTV TS GT 3.2 V6
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
#www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

What bandwidth are you on? It's generally (AIUI) accepted that the 50M
unit is Netgear, but I've not really got round to looking too deeply yet.

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 GTV TS GT 3.2 V6
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
#www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Mine is definitely Netgear.

Hmm, never needed to do that to mine. It's be up for about two months
now, since it was installed.

 

Worth a try that, so I'll look into it.

Apparently so, but I thought that in this day and age, something as simple
as a wireless "Plug & Play" link would've been sorted by now.

 

I won't be sending the hub back, just the two dongles, unless I can get them
to pair up. I suspect I'm going to have to GAMI though, coz I rapidly lose
patience with this shit.

 

Yep, mines Cisco.

But wired it's had no connection problems at all.

 

Does the software that comes with it have "Cisco" blathered all over it?
Mine does, but I've just discovered that the Hub itself says "Netgear" on
it.

 

On 01/05/2011 14:25, R C Nesbit wrote:

Or, alternatively, something that's not a steaming pile of horse turd.
Lower end Linksys stuff was once not bad, IME it's now almost
universally shite[1]

[1] The latest issues[2] I've found with that particular bit of kit are
not allowing my iPhone access to the internet when assigned an IP
address through DHCP[3] and taking a daily huff and stopping all network
traffic over wireless until the clients disconnect and reconnect
[2] Just the last 2 weeks worth in a fairly long line
[3] But strangely works if I assign an IP address via DHCP reservation