belkin wireless g router problems

Hi! I'm stuck! please help!!
My mate has just bought a Belkin Wireless G cable router. He only has
a laptop, and he needs to access the internet wirelessly through
Virgin. No matter what he seems to do with the "helpful" installation
CD he cannot get his laptop to reconise his router!
Does he need to configure the router as a acess point rather than just
a router, as the laptop will be the only PC he's got.
BTW, what is the difference between a acess point and a router?
Regards lou

On 15/10/2008 in message
<4671a827-0c34-457b-b467-(E-Mail Removed)>
louscannon wrote:

>Hi! I'm stuck! please help!!
>My mate has just bought a Belkin Wireless G cable router. He only has
>a laptop, and he needs to access the internet wirelessly through
>Virgin. No matter what he seems to do with the "helpful" installation
>CD he cannot get his laptop to reconise his router!
>Does he need to configure the router as a acess point rather than just
>a router, as the laptop will be the only PC he's got.
>BTW, what is the difference between a acess point and a router?
>Regards lou

His best bet is to plug a cable in from the laptop to the router as step
1. Then ensure the laptop is using DHCP (if the router dishes it up) so
they can talk to each other - if not then he needs to set the IP address
of the laptop to be in the same range as the router (usually 192.0.x.x or
192.1.x.x).
He can then go into the router's setup page (see the manual) and set it
all up.
Trying to set up a wireless router wirelessly is very frustrating, do it
while connected by a wire then disconnect the wire.

--
Jeff Gaines Damerham Hampshire UK
I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day.
Tomorrow, isn't looking good either.

"louscannon" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4671a827-0c34-457b-b467-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi! I'm stuck! please help!!
> My mate has just bought a Belkin Wireless G cable router. He only has
> a laptop, and he needs to access the internet wirelessly through
> Virgin. No matter what he seems to do with the "helpful" installation
> CD he cannot get his laptop to reconise his router!
> Does he need to configure the router as a acess point rather than just
> a router, as the laptop will be the only PC he's got.
> BTW, what is the difference between a acess point and a router?
> Regards lou

Reset the router. connect a network cable between the router and computer.
Using windows explorer go to 192.168.2.1 and enter the user name and
password
that is either on the router or in the instructions.
That will get you in to the configuration page. Fill in the details as
supplied by
Virgin. If there is already a modem, look for a "clone MAC address" on it
and
copy that in to the router.
Make sure you change the router access password so no one else can connect
to it, then change the SSID or router name to something else. Enter a WPA2
key under the wireless bit and make a note of it. Avoid WEP, it's insecure.
Restart the router and unplug the network cable. Now to the PC.
If it has a wireless network card built in, make sure it is enabled. If
after a
few seconds you don't get a message about new networks found - go to the
wireless icon by the clock and double click. click view wireless networks.
select the one that is yours and click connect, then enter the key you made
a
note of. The computer will then connet with the router and providing the
details to access Virgin are correct, you will have use of the internet.
Check he does have the correct type of router! Cable or ADSL.
If he can't follow the simple installation CD by answering questions
then there is no hope if you can't either - it must be faulty.

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:31:33 -0700 (PDT)
louscannon <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> BTW, what is the difference between a acess point and a router?

A wireless access point is a bridge - it simply passes traffic between
the wired and wireless parts of the network without doing anything to
it. A domestic router does network address translation (NAT) - it
presents a single address to the internet through which all the devices
on your LAN communicate, and keeps track of connections so it can send
responses back to the appropriate local IP address. Routers normally
have a switch built in to allow connection of multiple ethernet
devices, a wireless router also has a WAP built in.