Wi-Fi woes sharing broadband connection

[Woodcycl]

I've setup 2 wireless shared broadband (my own and a friends) succesfully using Netgear's highly rated router (wireless & wired) and their Wireless PC Cards.

However, when using the same exact equipment and the same provider (Insight Broad Band Cable) for a neighbor down the street, we've had nothing but issues.

Here's the sticky on the matter:

Router: Netgear WGR614 (http://www.netgear.com/products/prod_details.php?prodID=174&view=)
Wireless PCI Cards: WG311 (http://www.netgear.com/products/prod_details.php?prodID=208&view=)
Cable Modem: Arris
ISP: Insight Broad Band (cable)

PC1: HP P4 Windows XP HE w/ all WinUpdates
PC2: Dell P3 Windows 2000 w/ all WinUpdates

Insight requires that the router's MAC Address be registered with them ... and they associate the "one" IP address with the router.

We are successfully up to having PC1 connected wireless successfully. However, PC2 is not able to PING or resolve names in IE (no connectivity).

Here's how I have the router setup:

1. a & b
2. Filtering MAC Addresses (I enter the MAC addresses that are allowed to use the network)
3. WEP 128bit enabled
4. I'm broadcasting the SSID ... because if I don't for some reason there is a problem that causes me to NOT be able to get into the router config via the browser and I'm hosed.

PC2's wireless card is "connected" to the router ... you can see a successful connection. And, I've triple and quadruple checked the entry of the WEP key. But, there is no connectivity. I worked on this for 5 straight hours last night. :x

One thing I noticed about the "properties" of the PC2's wireless PCI card ... is that it was assigning a bogus IP address to that connection. It started with a 169. ... However, it should have had a 192.168.0.X IP. And, I did NOT have a "support" tab to go into to see the details or perform a Repair (whereas, this is available on the XP machine!!!!! Uggh). I tried performing a ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew, etc. etc. etc. .... with absolutely NO luck. Not sure what's up with this ... but I wonder if this is the problem ?? :confused:

Some things I tried:

1. uninstalling and reinstalling the wireless PCI card's driver and software multiple times.
2. 10 to 20 reboots ...
3. Talked with Insight multiple times.

Any hints, ideas, or suggestions for things to try is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Brian

[cat5e]

IP that starts with 169.xxx.xxx.xxx is the default IP when the system can not find a DHCP server.

In other word the computer is not really connected to the Router.

Link to: Wireless - Basic Configuration. (http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Config.html)

Link to: Wireless Security. (http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Security.html)

:t

[Midknyte]

first of all, you should have made sure that both systems could connect BEFORE you enable the security. I would disable the MAC filtering and WEP and just try to connect clean first. Once you do that, you can start building up the fortress walls. :cool:

[Woodcycl]

I turned off all the security and went w/ the defaults and then once I had it working on both PCs, started turning on one security area at a time and confirming connectivity after each.

Thanks for the tips!

Brian

[bob05]

To be honest, I keep WEP off. No one around here uses DSL or Cable, let alone having a wireless adapter. Most here don't even know what any of that is. :D

Like Midknyte said, turn off everything special until you get it working, then start to turn on the features, one by one.

[Midknyte]

The first thing I enable is MAC filtering so that no one can hijack my connection. :cool: