Help with setting up encryption!

Just got a new laptop and wireless router (my firsts) Having fun toying around and learning new stuff Well i spent several hours fooling around/learning how to connect my desktop to the router and laptop wirelessly to the router to share my cable internet access. Now i've tweaked around with encryption settings but they don't seem to work..

If i disable encryption and disable mac filtering on my router, my laptop can connect to the internet fine.

When I enable the basic 64bit WEP encryption on my router, I can't connect to the internet from my laptop. It can connect to the router itself but it takes a long time trying to receive an IP from the router, so i can't conect to the internet via the laptop. I use Auto DHCP btw..

Any suggestions? I'm still very new to this, just having fun getting knowledge etc (while trying to secure my network)

(I tweaked around a little more and I figured out i can turn on MAC filtering without the WEP authorization and just allow my laptop to use my wireless conx, does anybody else do this? Is this a good way to go? I'd like to have both WEP and Mac filtering though.. moreso to find out why the WEP doesnt work..

 

2 things, what kind of router do you have, and have you tryed using WPA (Wireless Protected Acces). Thats even more secure than WEP.

 

I haven't fooled around with WPA yet. I have a linksys wrt54-g router and my wireless network radio on laptop is an intel 2200g

 

I also read somewhere that WPA is slower than WEP? Is that true? Bogs down bandwidth? Or is it negligible?

 

Thats the same exact equipment i have except in a 2100 card. I realized that to when i was doing setup, for some reason i think you have to leave the setup page open and when it says it cant connect to the internet, go and try to connect to it by clicking the little wireless computer icon in the bottom right. Try to connect to the specified network, and type in the password. Or also, when setting up, just exit out of the setup screen after it cant connect and it sometimes work. It really must be with the cards or something becuase i am having problems to that i cant figure out.

 

A g router gives of plenty of strength, 54mpbs and your internet connection is probaly under 6mbps and it is more than enough. If any lower speeds are caused they are slim. Remember that WPA is more safer than WEP.

 

Okay i'll try fool around with WPA.. I have the following options:

WPA Pre-shared Key
WPA Radius
WPA2 Pre-shared Key Only
WPA2 Radius Only
WPA2 Pre-shared Mixed
WPA2 Radius Mixed

Which one should i use? lol

 

I would go with WPA Radius

 

Oh and what WPA algorithms should i use? TKIP, AES or both?

And what Group Key Renewl mean? It's defaulted at 3600 seconds

 

Go with TKIP or both, TKIP should be good enough, leave the other one as it is defaulted.

 

I Have a WRT54GS. I thought if you used Radius you needed a Radius server or have to use WEP ? The help page on my router shows

RADIUS: RADIUS utilizes either a RADIUS server for authentication or WEP for data encryption. To utilize RADIUS, enter the IP address of the RADIUS server and its shared secret. Select the desired encryption bit (64 or 128) for WEP and enter either a passphrase or a manual WEP key.

I use WPA2 - Intel 2915abg card - see no slowness. Conectivity is solid for days at a time (then all heck breaks loose and becomes stable again for days)

Most of my activity is Internet related as nicspohn said I am capped at 2.5 mps download so I would not notice drops from 54mps unitl /when it drops below 2.5.

Also I have found from time to time I need to reneter my 'key' on the wireless machines to connect (when I have the flurry of disconnects) - not sure how it gets corrupted ...

 

I thought about it and wasnt sure about radius, i dont remeber that option when i was configuring, hmm..

 

I would use 64-bit encryption if I were you, because it is less often hacked - most hackers have 128bit encryption cracks - nobody thinks about 64!!

 

The only one in your list that would work properly on your system is WPA PSK (Pre-shared Key).

Anything with Radius on it requires a Radius Server setup to authenticate the connection (which you don't have).

WPA2 is not compatible with the Intel 2200BG cards, so this won't work.

That leaves WPA-PSK the only option.

When you setup the router, select WPA PSK, enter your encryption key and then enter the same key on your 2200BG card. You'd select WPA PSK-TKIP option in XP (should be using Windows' Zero Config option).

-Vb-

 

I think I encountered the same thing when I was setting up my Linksys, just think about it like this... If you make a change to the router setting, you have to make the same change to the profile in your Intel PROSET (wireless card) menu. Like Venom said, WPA2 isn't compatible, since you can't get the same combination of encryption types on the card and the router. I did everything one step at a time, and kept the two synched up after each change, it helped me to backcheck myself