Netgear wireless router problem

[Capricorn]

I love a challenge (part 1 of 2)

I'm now thinking the problem is a little further "upstream" than I was originally thinking. Since you've been able to put the ethernet cable into some port on your PC, I believe that you have a Network Interface Card in your PC. That is unless you've managed to stick it into a modem jack on your PC. (Don't laugh, it's been done.) Do you happen to know what the make/model of your NIC? (Built into the motherboard perhaps?) The reason I ask is that even if you have nothing connected to it at all, you should still see "Local Area Connection" in the Network Connections dialog window. (Right-click on My Network Places and choose Properties to get there fastest.)

If you don't have that, I suspect your NIC has been disabled - quite possibly by the Comcast installation software in order to keep it from conflicting with their USB network drivers. If you don't see "Local Area Connection" (or something similar - something besides 1394 blah blah blah, that is) that's the first problem to solve. See the attached picture.

 

[Capricorn]

Part 2 of 2 (try 2)

Assuming you don't see any Local Area Connection, right-click on "My Computer", choose Properties, click the Hardware tab and push the Device Manager button. In the Device Manager dialog window, you should see Network Adapters menu line. If you click the plus or double-click the name "Network Adapters" it will expand (if there's anything to expand). See the attached picture. If your physical NIC adapter (mine is the Realtek RTL8139) has a red X through it, it's been disabled. If you right-click on your physical adapter (blah 1394 blah blah doesn't count) and the pop-up menu lists "Enable" among it's choices, it's definitely been disabled. I purposely disabled my COM 2 port in the attached picture so you can see what it looks like.

However, let's hold on one second before continuing on. If you enable it and this is the computer you're reading this on, life is likely to grind to a halt if this does conflict with your USB driven network connection. If that happens, disable the physical NIC and we'll go from there.

Just for giggles, what brand (make/model) of cable modem do you have? I'll see if I can download the manual for it.

The network can be run over a USB connection (obviously) and with USB 2.0 speeds, it's even fairly reasonable. Unfortunately, it's incompatible with the type of network you're trying to set up.

 

[Danmit11]

Its a Comcast Scientific-Atlanta DPC 2100 Cable Modem.

I went to the Device Manager area under the My Computer/properties menu. Here's what was under the Network Adaptors tab:

1394 Net Adaptor
Scientific Atlanta WebSTAR 2000 series Cable Modem

And then I looked under a tab called OTHER DEVICES and here is what it said (I feel like I'm singing a song):

Base System Device
Base System Device
Ethernet Controller
Multimedia Audio Controller
Network Controller
Video Controller (VGA Compatible)

Every single one of those has a yellow question mark with a small exclamation point over it.

Then under a PCMCIA Adaptors tab it said:

Texas Instruments 4510 Cardbus Controllers

None of those have a red X through them though. But the exclamation point on the question marks. Especially with the "Ethernet Controller"

I hope this helps you evaluate the situation.

So just to start out, you'd like me to disable the 1394 Adaptor correct? If so then I will do that

 

[Capricorn]

AHA!

Now, we're getting somewhere! This is a laptop then? (PCMCIA controllers aren't typical on desktops.) Not to worry. What's happened is you have several devices that the OS hasn't gotten drivers for. At least one of them is the ethernet controller/NIC, which is why you're not getting anywhere. No driver for an ethernet device means it doesn't exist as far as XP is concerned.

Can you give me the make/model of the laptop (or desktop)? Or if you'd rather, visit the manufacturers site and look for drivers specific to your machine for Windows XP. Especially, of course, ethernet NIC drivers.

On the Device Manager picture I posted earlier, you'll see I have an Other Devices section in my list. Really, if all the drivers are installed properly, you won't have any "Other" section at all. I can't get rid of mine due to an old parallel scanner with ancient drivers that aren't quite XP compatible. (But the thing still works, darnit. Otherwise, I could justify a new one.)

I'm curious how things got this way. Did you reload the OS (upgrade the OS, etc) at some point? Most manufacturers would never release a machine without those driver issues resolved.

Some generic "other" drivers work ok, but usually with fewer features than if you load a specific one from the manufacturer of the device. I can believe that the video works for the LCD without a hardware specific driver, but do you get any sound out of this machine? (That's what the Multimedia Audio Controller is.) I suppose a generic driver might work for that, too.

I'm a bit confused that both an Ethernet Controller &
Network Controller are listed. One is your NIC for sure, but the other might be the NIC, the USB network connection, or something else. I believe that the Ethernet Controller is the built-in NIC. If you double-click on that to bring up the properties, is there any clues as to who the chip maker is under any of the tabs?

Try this. In the Device Manager dialog, right-click on the Ethernet controller and choose "Update Driver..." from the popup. Let Windows search the internet (for a better driver). You'll need to have the machine connected to the Internet, of couse. We might get lucky here and get it to load a driver without having to sleuth anything. If that doesn't work, try the same thing for the Network Controller. If that doesn't work, we'd need to dig into the reference guide for your machine to see what it's made of.

Oh, and the 1394 Adaptor. I don't think it's even figuring in to the situation, now. Don't do anything with it.

Fun, isn't it?

 

[Capricorn]

I just downloaded the manual. (Second link on Google using the search "Scientific-Atlanta DPC 2100 Cable Modem.") This looks like a pretty nice modem, and what you want should be quite doable. In fact, the picture on page 11 (assuming you have a copy of this, too) looks like the goal we're shooting for (less the USB connection). In the end, you won't be using the USB connection at all. What the manual says to do in XP is pretty typical for DSL/cable connections. First, we have to get the local area connection (i.e., the ethernet NIC) just to be a working device on your machine. I don't think the problem is in the cable modem or the NetGear router/WAP at this point.

Out of curiousity, what do you see in the device manager of the second machine you want to connect (assuming it has a built-in ethernet port)? Maybe, it might be better to start with that one.

 

[Danmit11]

The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 5150.

I clicked on the Ethernet Controllers tab as well as the Network Controllers tab. When I asked it to update the drivers it asked for a disc. I suppose I need to grab the Windows XP installation disc to help with this.

For the Ethernet controller when I dbl-clicked on it it said that the drivers for this device are not installed (Code 28). When I tried to reinstall the drivers it asked for the installation disc. It had no specific information about the driver (it said things like unknown, etc.) But it did say the location was: PCI bus 2, device 1, function 0. I don't know if this really means anything. It was the same deal with the Network Controllers tab except it was located in: PCI bus 2, device 2, function 0.

I don't recall the OS being upgraded or tampered with.

Here's something else I tried that ended oddly: I right clicked on Ethernet Controllers and clicked update drivers. it then asked me to search on a CDROM or a location that I specified. I chose the second option. It then asked where to search or which driver of my choice to install. I clicked the second option and it brought me to a window that looked like the Device Manager window. i then clicked on network adaptors and clicked next. It then brought up a window that showed a specific adaptor. The manufacterer was Broadcom. The Netword Adaptor was titled: BCM5701 Gibabit Ethernet. It said that if i had a disc to say yes ( I chose not to) and I clicked next. It then came up with a window that said the following installing this might be dangerous because Windows can't verify that it is compatible with my hardware. If i isn't compatible, my hardware will not work correctly and my pc might become unstable or stop working completely. Do I want to continue installing this driver?

I clicked no becuase I really don't trust this window. Any suggestions about this? Ill try next time with the actual disc but I have to run to a class.

On the second PC I'm trying to hook up (which is a Desktop) under the network adaptors it said: 3Com 3C900B-TBO Ethernet Adaptor (Generic). The reason I'm using the laptop for all of this is because it was the computer that the Comcast was installed with and everything. THe Desktop does have an 802.11 Wireless adaptor. I had to get it last year because the building only offered wireless which is why I'm trying to connect that desktop using a wireless network.

By the by, thanks so much for your help so far!

 

[Capricorn]

OK. That helps.

I went to Dell's web site and looked at the Dell Inspiron 5150 support pages. That led me to these drivers for the NIC. You seem to have found that this is a Broadcom 5170 gigabit (10/100/1000) NIC, but the Dell drivers only purport to support a 10/100 NIC, which I find a bit confusing. Try to download and install those drivers first to see if your network card gets recognized. I would go with those first as I believe Dell knows what it put in there. I downloaded them and gave them a shot. It looks like they'll completely install themselves without you having to go find any Windows or Dell disks. If those don't seem to do the job, Broadcom offers their own drivers at www.broadcom.com, but let's start with Dell's as I'm fairly certain that's what you want.

If you go to the Inspiron 5150 support download page you'll see drivers for a bunch of devices, but different models of the 5150 must have different internal devices. From the items you listed earlier as being in the others section, you also need to install video and audio drivers. I see video drivers for both Nvidia (5200) and ATI (9000) graphics chipsets, so you'd definitely want to know which one you have. The 5150s seem to have been available with both whereas the 5100 only had an ATI chipset (the 7500). A little bit of searching around in the device manager like you did for the Network Adapter (but in the Display Adapters area ought to get you an answer.) There also may be an Nvidia or ATI sticker on the laptop somewhere.

There's only one
audio driver listed, so there's no question that that's the right one. Also, if you don't have a modem listed in the device manager (under Modems), you might need one of the several listed, but again, you'll want to find out which one. While you are at it, get this 5150 base system one as well. Again, the nirvana we are trying to reach is no devices listed in the "Other" section. The Base System ones might be a challenge as they can be practically anything. Installing these other drivers might pick those up as well. Let's hope.

I downloaded the 5150 manuals as well. Nice machine. I'm jealous.