Router is lying to me. Don't have wireless.

[agaitros]

Just moved in to a new house with my wife and I did the usual little dance with the modem to get it to start pulling an internet signal. We got it to work finally and the router was displaying the little blue light that said that wireless was working so we pulled the Ethernet from the laptop and then nothing.

Our wireless network wasn't showing up in the network and sharing center even though it worked perfectly with the Ethernet in and it would even display our network in the NSC during the whole modem fiasco.

The only thing I can conclude from this is that either the router is lying and actually isn't displaying any kind of wireless signal or for some reason neither my wife nor my computer is receiving the signal for some reason.



Stats:

Ubee d3.0 modem
linksys Wrt16on v3
Dell Inspiron 1525 with Vista
Dell Inspiron 1545 with 7

 

[carnageX]

Have you logged into your router to see if it's broadcasting the SSID, and not just making it hidden?

Have you trid resetting the router to factory defaults and set it up again?

 

[agaitros]

the SSID is set to enabled and we have reset the router to the factory settings a few times. When I tried it just now there was a "linksys" that popped up in the network and sharing center with full bars but it wouldn't connect to it. Our network isn't named linksys though as is evident by the network name when we plug in the ethernet.

One thing that might be worth noting is that the DS on the modem is a solid blue instead of the solid green that everything else is. We are drawing internet so I am hesitant to say that anything is wrong with the modem....

 

[agaitros]

quick update+++

I have changed the network mode to Wireless-N only and our network appeared in the Network and sharing center but it wouldn't allow us to connect to it. Kind of at square one again.

 

[Law]

If you reset the router, the default SSID is likely linksys. You need to enable mix mode to support 802.11b/g devices and use WPA/WPA2 mix for older devices.

I recommend installing Xirrus: High Performance Wireless Networks - Advanced IT Wi-Fi Networking Tools and post a screen shot with it.

 

[agaitros]

We have the router named how we wanted it and if you read the update you will see that we are now seeing our network in the list of networks we just aren't able to get on it.

As far as mix mode is concerned, it was on mix mode before and when it wasn't working, changing it to Wireless-N only made our network appear in the que.

 

[patonb]

We know you had it named, but resetting will wipe out your settings, hence why it was suggested.
When you say "Network Name" Where did you read it from? As the network name and the Wireless SSID Name are 2 different things.

Do you know if your laptops have N adapters? As Dell states that the 1525 comes with 1 of 5 different cards and only 1 is N compatible. If you aren't N compatible, you won't get on to it.

 

[agaitros]

Resetting it did wipe the settings but we renamed it after so that we would know what the network name is, making the chance that "linksys" was the network name being next to impossible. Also - network name and SSID (in this instance) are the same name and are not two completely different things.

My assumption is that my laptop is N compatible because the only two modes in which the network name will appear in the list of networks are Mixed and Wireless-N Only. The commonality between these two is that they both work with a Channel Width of 20 or 40MHz as opposed to just the 20MHz option. If my computer is not N compatible then I am completely befuddled as to why the network name is not showing up under any other mode. What kind of ways can I check this (just to make sure) without physically cracking open my laptop.

I might state as well that both my computer and her computer have worked with this particular router before with no troubles at all (and we have not done anything, to my knowledge, to reset any of our settings on the computers). The only new hardware that we are dealing with is the modem.

 

[agaitros]

another update +++

So I did a bunch of research and somebody had a bunch of settings that I tried out. They were as follows

Network Mode set to mixed
Channel Width 20MHz
Channel set to 11
Beacon interval set to 75
Fragmentation Threshold set to 2304
RTS Threshold set to 2304 also.
Security is WPA

the rest of the settings are default (besides the SSID of course).

The result of this was that I was able to connect to the network (albeit it took some time) but the network and sharing center said that I was connected to an unidentified network and that it was not connected to internet. The fact that I can connect to the network shows that the wireless is working. On the other hand, when I hook my computer up via ethernet it has not problem connecting to the internet or identifying the network. Sound like anything that anybody knows about?

 

[patonb]

To figure out what your adapter is, go to dell vand plug your service number in... It'll tell everything.

As far as I know, N or G has nothing to do with seeing the router... they will both get seen by each other, they'll just not talk. N is a more powerful signal. How far away vare you from the router? and whats between it and you?

I'd start right back to 0. Default the router with no security ande default on the adapter. Try connecting. Then add a SSID, then add security. If you can't get on with default and no security, you have hardware issues.