Vista and Netgear I've spent 23 hours on this!

The utilities I am using in the following scenario include HP Pavillion DV2550se with Vista, Core 2 Duo, Centrino Duo. Netgear MR814v2 with WEP security no authentification. and Pacbell highspeed internet through Westell modem.
Ok I am having this ridiculously time consuming problem. I have kept logs and I have spent 23.5 hours trying to fix this 14 of those hours have been on the phone with tech support. I got a brand new laptop from best buy on monday HP Pavillion DV3550se. First day it seemed my wireless internet was running fine. Second day not working. It was giving me error messages that said there was an IP conflict and another computer on my network had the same IP address as me. I called in to HP tech support and we seemed to have resolved the issue by running some commands in the cmd black window. Next day I was having very intermittent wireless problems. I would be connected for 5 minutes then my connection would drop for 5 min. I would run the diagnostics in the network and sharing center and half the time it would say could not connect with DNS or sum DNS error, the other half it says there is no problem and I could get 5 more min of internet. I started at HP tech support. They tried everything they cud, no fix they blamed it on the router. I have had this router for over a year and had no problems. I currently run another Lenovo laptop running XP just fine wirelessly. So I call Netgear tech support they try everything and we tried to reset my entire network and in the process I lost internet on all of my computers, wired and wireless. The router was no longer receiving an IP address from the modem. So he blamed it on my ISP and left me with nothing. At this time my dad comes home and cusses me out for screwing it all up. I call up my ISP and we spend hours, finally getting it back up and running. My laptop still had same problems. I have tried everything on this laptop, reinstalling drivers, all kinds of security settings, I even went back and did a full system recovery, but still same prob. I took it back to the store declaring it broken, and got a replacement. I set up my new one, and it is having the same problems. I can go on my neighboors unsecure linksys wireless and it works just fine. My Netgear is running WEP security with no authentification. Someone please help me, I am absolutely desperate. Where is the problem and how do I fix it???? I know it is not a problem with my ISP and my router gives off wireless just fine. Sorry this is so long and thank you very much in advance for any support.

 

Vista does not like WEP and works better with WPA w/key. Any way WEP is like an Open System, less than a min to break in with the proper software.

Vista has problems with some router and DHCP, here is a link to MS page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us
It adds a key to the register.

But first you need to set the router up for WPA or WPA2 AES or TKIP/Passphrase. WEP and Vista does not play well and has major problems. MAC Filtering is not security since all that info is sent in the header packets. Do the setup with WPA SSID broadcasted. Once it is working you can hide the SSID with out any problem. Once all of your other computer are working OK wirelessly do the setup on the HP NB.

I hope this will get you started

 

Thanks for the advice i will look into it. Is my router even able to do that tho? Ive had it for about 2 years and I don't know if it has WPA capabilities.

 

Most all routers unless it's a 11b only built with in the last 2+ years have supported WPA, not all support WPA2. If yours does not make sure you have the latest firmware.

 

Have you attempted disabling wep and leaving the system open just to see if that is the issue?

 

You can also set a static IP in the LAN if its mixing up IP's...

 

I had the exact same problem with the Netgear MR814v2 after upgrading to Vista. Also, my iPhone seemed to be having problems connecting using the WEP key as well. I updated the firmware from 5.0 to 5.3 and so far everything is working now, despite Netgear not necessarily claiming that this router is "vista compatible". Hopefully it's just that simple.

To upgrade the firmware: http://kbserver.netgear.com/release_notes/D102875.asp

Netgear Vista Compatibility: http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n101649_all.asp