Need Help - bring wireless connection to my friend's father-in-law

S

Stevarian

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 13, 2002
Messages
499
I know just enough about computers to be dangerous, and to build my own systems to play games. I have always wanted to learn about networking, but never seem to keep a 2nd system around long enough to learn.

Anyway, a friend at work wants to allow his father in law across the street to use his wireless internet connection. My friend has a desktop system, that has the cable modem and a wireless router connected. He also has his own laptop with a wireless card, and he has absolutely no problems using the wireless for his laptop.

His father in law (f-i-l)has a desktop system (I believe) and lives right across the street. Apparently the f-i-l's system can identify there is a wireless network available, but can't access the internet.

I think my friend has tried some of the basics, including installing the cd that came with his router on his f-i-l's computer, but so far no luck.

I don't know where to tell him to go next. I was hoping someone could either point me to a step-by-step walkthru on handling something like this, or at least give me something to google for.

I am stumped, since he had no problem establishing his laptop on his system, but can't add his f-i-l.

I believe all the systems have XP home edition on them. My friend's router is Netgear (don't have the exact model number).

Please don't flame me, I am the first to admit I am a total noob when it comes to networking.

Thank you very much in advance for your help!

Steve
 
I am not an expert in networking, but i have some practice. Your Friends FIL is proly beyond the signal range. Although he can likely detect the netowrk, theres not enough.. how should i say in simple tersm... Ummmphhhh behind the signal for it to be worth connecting to. What i'd reccomend is getting a set of Antanne. Prolly a +db5 antannae on the router, and one on the FIL's wireless network card should work... If your FIL's Wireless card is not the kind that you can screw in a dif antanne to, proly wanna get oen of those to.

Now, What this means is it's gonna super boost the signal. so, that will make your friends network all that much more unsecure. so you'll want to have someone who knows networking well to help you set up a network security encryption code. That'll make it all that much more harder for someone to use your friends wireless without his permission...

You can find Antannes on new egg and other sites.. for example....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833156009

If i've made a mistake or left anyting out please feel free to correct me peeps. :)
 
Thank you very much. I will let him know that today. How far can a basic wireless router transmit?

Steve
 
think they claim 300-400 feet indoors which is not true and about 900-1000 outdoors
 
I made a mistake, my friend's father in law has a laptop, with a wireless card. My friend apparently can take his laptop over to his father in law's, and he can use his wireless connection from his house across the street, so apparently the signal strength is great enough to cover the distance.

Best Buy came out and got my friend's machine to work on his wireless network, so he doesn't know what they did or what settings were used. His laptop works great, but he can't get his father in law's to work.

Any suggestions on what I can tell him to do to get his father in law hooked up to his wireless network? He tried following some instructions I found on the web, that had you save your network connections to a flash drive, but apparently his router doesn't have a USB port on, as part of the process involved plugging the flash drive into the router.

Steve
 
The flash drive is not meant to go in to the router, it is meant to load up the configurations used on to another computer. Does the router have protection on it? cause if it does and you provide an invalid passcode it will give you an IP of 169... the auto ip check the F.I.L.s Computer after you connect to the wireless and go to start...run... cmd... ipconfig /all and see if the ip address is like that
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top