Linksys WGA54G not working :-(

Hi,

I've got a Linksys WGA54G (you know the IEEE 802.1b/g Wireless Game
Adapter) which you can connect to a Playstation2 or XBox, but I can't
get it to work :-(

If you take a look at the documentation, i.e. Quick Installation Guide
and User Guide as provided with it, it should work out of the box
........ but in my case it doesn't.

So here's my story, if you could please help me out on this one.

Let me start with saying it is a new one in a sealed package, so it's
not even from Ebay :-)

What's wrong here .....

According to the Quick Installation Guide I should hook up the WGA54G
with the provided UTP cable to a PC Ethernet port. In this case it's my
laptop.

Note : The Ethernet port does't have a IP address assigned as it's
configured for DHCP. According to the documentation provided this should
be ok. Aka, it shout get an IP address from the WGA54G, or will use a
169.254.x.x. Windows default address.

Action:
So hooked up the WGA54G to the laptop (back-to-back) with the UTP cable
(straight 1:1) as provided in the package and connected the Power supply
to the WGA54G.

Result:
At this stage the Power and Ethernet leds are lit steadily, so this
looks fine.

Action:
Then I inserted the provided CR with the WGA54G Setup Wizard (ver.1.05
EU/LA) and executed the 'setup.exe' file. The setup wizard starts ....

Action:
Clicked on 'Setup' and the message 'Searching the WGA54G, please wait'
appears (and counter 10-100%).

Result :
Message : 'The Setup Utility was unable to locate an Wireless-G Game
Adapter on your network. Please make sure your Wireless-G Game Adapter
is powered on and any cables are properly connected. -Continue-'

As mentioned before the UTP cable was already connected to the Laptop
UTP port and the power sully was already connected aswell, so the
message provided doesn't bring me anything ...

So what to do now ?
I configured the static IP address of 192.168.1.1/24 on my laptops UTP
port as I've seen in the User Guide that the default IP address of the
WGA54G is 192.168.1.250/24. So both on the same network and using the
same netmask. This should do the trick, as I thought ...

Result:
Same message here, the wizard doesn't find the WGA54G on the same
network :-(

What could I do more ?
As I'm working on a laptop running Win2000 Prof. I thought maybe it's
because I've changed the IP address on the fly, so I decided to reboot
the whole machine and try the whole procedure as descibed above again.

Result:
Same message here, the wizard doesn't find the WGA54G on the same
network :-(

So I decided the Setup Wizard doesn't bring me any good here, let's try
the Web based Interface.

Action:
Made a connection to 192.168.1.250 with Internet Explorer
v.6.0.2800.1106CO (with SP1 and several Q-numbered Updates installed).

Result:
Finally received the Userid/Password screen :-)
Entered the'Admin' password and I'm in, wow ..

And now ?
Checked on the firmware, it mentiones WGA54G, ETSI, v1.08, Juli 20,2003
Looks ok, but to be sure I've the latest I did a check on
ftp.linksys.com/international/.. and ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/.. and
searched for firmware and setup wizard updates.
Didn't manage to find both of them, so I concluded this was the latest
firmware release and setup software available today.

Secondly I checked the MAC Address of the device and this wonders me, on
the device it stated MAC = 00:0C:41:5D:4B:39 and the Web Interface tells
me the MAC address = 98:60:00:00:00:00. Strange ..
I don't think this it's a bad thing or it will prohibit the device from
working, but this is not right !!

What else ?
Configured the 'Setup' page with the following changes to the default
setting.
Checked on the SSID on my WAP54G and filled the right SSID in here.
Checked on the WEP-key, 128 bit encryption, used the same passphrase and
double checked the generated WEP-key numbers on both the WAP54G and
WGA54G, they are both exactly the same, so this is right.

The WGA54G found my Wirless Network so this looks promissing.
Then pressed the 'Apply' key to save the changes made sofar.

The Power led begins to flicker and the 'Your changes have been saved.
-continue-' message appears on the screen. Clicked on 'continue' to go
back to the configuration page.

ok, until now this looks fine, then next to the 'Advanced' Page.

Checked on the 'IP Address' configuration and this is fine
Changed the 'Transmission rate' from 'Automatic' to '54 Mbps'
Change the 'Mode' to 'G-only' as I only have and want to have IEEE
802.11g capable devices to connect to the wireless network, so no IEEE
802.11b or mixed mode here.
Changed 'Authentication' from 'Open System' to 'Shared Key' as I only
want to use a 'secure' WEP enabled network.

As I don't need 'Cloning' at this stage I changed the setting from
'Automatic' to 'Disabled'.
At this stage, didn't change the password aswell, so still the default here.

Then pressed the 'Apply' key to save the changes made.

Again the Power led begins to flicker and the 'Your changes have been
saved. -continue-' message appears on the screen. Clicked on 'continue'
to go back to the configuration page.

At this stage the Status is 'Disconnected'.

So I selected the right wireless network (as there are more) by pressing
the little button on the left side of the screen to actually select the
network to connect to and pressed the 'connect' button.

So what I execpected here was the the WGA54G is going to make a
connection to the Wireless network as selected, but noting happens here.
The Wireless-G led flickers very flacky for a short period of time, but
it's not able to connect to the network.

The Status is still 'Disconnected'. :-(

Strange thing however is when I checked on the 'Setup' page that the
network I've previously selected is not selected anymore, aka it looks
like the thing I've selected is not saved. So selected the network again
and operformed a 'Apply' first.
Again, the network I've previously selected is not selected anymore.

Strange behaviour, this is probably not right !

Are there more tricks ?
Probably, disconnected the UTP cable and power cables from the WGA54G
and booted it again to see if it comes up in the right status, so
connected to my previously selected network.

First connected the UTP cable again and then the power cable.
WGA54G boots again and after a short while both the Power en Ethernet
led lit steadily, looks ok from the outside, but still NO Wireless-G led
lit, so this means not connected :-(

Tried to check on the actual configuration of the device, but something
strange happend aswell, when I issued a new Internet Explorer window and
tried to connect to 192.168.1.250, it doen't work anymore, 'Not able to
find the page'. I don't give up very easy so I 'disbled' and 'enabled'
my ethernet port of the laptop and tried it again.
Finally this helped and was able to get back into the Web configuration
pages. Strange though, I would think....

And now, how to proceed ???
---------------------------
Yes, good question, I've tried all the things I could think of at the
moment, but did not succeed to get it up and running :-(

Help will be really appreciated .....

Checked again and again on the configuration of my WAP54G, but this
exacly matches the configuration of the WGA54G.

Still 'Disconnected' :-((((

M@rkwin

The post was way too long to read all of it. If you can replace it, then
you should do it, as it sounds like it's defective.

Duane

"Markwin Romijn" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cf03v1$3go$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I've got a Linksys WGA54G (you know the IEEE 802.1b/g Wireless Game
> Adapter) which you can connect to a Playstation2 or XBox, but I can't
> get it to work :-(
>
> If you take a look at the documentation, i.e. Quick Installation Guide
> and User Guide as provided with it, it should work out of the box
> ....... but in my case it doesn't.
>
> So here's my story, if you could please help me out on this one.
>
> Let me start with saying it is a new one in a sealed package, so it's
> not even from Ebay :-)
>
> What's wrong here .....
>
> According to the Quick Installation Guide I should hook up the WGA54G
> with the provided UTP cable to a PC Ethernet port. In this case it's my
> laptop.
>
> Note : The Ethernet port does't have a IP address assigned as it's
> configured for DHCP. According to the documentation provided this should
> be ok. Aka, it shout get an IP address from the WGA54G, or will use a
> 169.254.x.x. Windows default address.
>
> Action:
> So hooked up the WGA54G to the laptop (back-to-back) with the UTP cable
> (straight 1:1) as provided in the package and connected the Power supply
> to the WGA54G.
>
> Result:
> At this stage the Power and Ethernet leds are lit steadily, so this
> looks fine.
>
> Action:
> Then I inserted the provided CR with the WGA54G Setup Wizard (ver.1.05
> EU/LA) and executed the 'setup.exe' file. The setup wizard starts ....
>
> Action:
> Clicked on 'Setup' and the message 'Searching the WGA54G, please wait'
> appears (and counter 10-100%).
>
> Result :
> Message : 'The Setup Utility was unable to locate an Wireless-G Game
> Adapter on your network. Please make sure your Wireless-G Game Adapter
> is powered on and any cables are properly connected. -Continue-'
>
> As mentioned before the UTP cable was already connected to the Laptop
> UTP port and the power sully was already connected aswell, so the
> message provided doesn't bring me anything ...
>
> So what to do now ?
> I configured the static IP address of 192.168.1.1/24 on my laptops UTP
> port as I've seen in the User Guide that the default IP address of the
> WGA54G is 192.168.1.250/24. So both on the same network and using the
> same netmask. This should do the trick, as I thought ...
>
> Result:
> Same message here, the wizard doesn't find the WGA54G on the same
> network :-(
>
> What could I do more ?
> As I'm working on a laptop running Win2000 Prof. I thought maybe it's
> because I've changed the IP address on the fly, so I decided to reboot
> the whole machine and try the whole procedure as descibed above again.
>
> Result:
> Same message here, the wizard doesn't find the WGA54G on the same
> network :-(
>
> So I decided the Setup Wizard doesn't bring me any good here, let's try
> the Web based Interface.
>
> Action:
> Made a connection to 192.168.1.250 with Internet Explorer
> v.6.0.2800.1106CO (with SP1 and several Q-numbered Updates installed).
>
> Result:
> Finally received the Userid/Password screen :-)
> Entered the'Admin' password and I'm in, wow ..
>
> And now ?
> Checked on the firmware, it mentiones WGA54G, ETSI, v1.08, Juli 20,2003
> Looks ok, but to be sure I've the latest I did a check on
> ftp.linksys.com/international/.. and ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/.. and
> searched for firmware and setup wizard updates.
> Didn't manage to find both of them, so I concluded this was the latest
> firmware release and setup software available today.
>
> Secondly I checked the MAC Address of the device and this wonders me, on
> the device it stated MAC = 00:0C:41:5D:4B:39 and the Web Interface tells
> me the MAC address = 98:60:00:00:00:00. Strange ..
> I don't think this it's a bad thing or it will prohibit the device from
> working, but this is not right !!
>
> What else ?
> Configured the 'Setup' page with the following changes to the default
> setting.
> Checked on the SSID on my WAP54G and filled the right SSID in here.
> Checked on the WEP-key, 128 bit encryption, used the same passphrase and
> double checked the generated WEP-key numbers on both the WAP54G and
> WGA54G, they are both exactly the same, so this is right.
>
> The WGA54G found my Wirless Network so this looks promissing.
> Then pressed the 'Apply' key to save the changes made sofar.
>
> The Power led begins to flicker and the 'Your changes have been saved.
> -continue-' message appears on the screen. Clicked on 'continue' to go
> back to the configuration page.
>
> ok, until now this looks fine, then next to the 'Advanced' Page.
>
> Checked on the 'IP Address' configuration and this is fine
> Changed the 'Transmission rate' from 'Automatic' to '54 Mbps'
> Change the 'Mode' to 'G-only' as I only have and want to have IEEE
> 802.11g capable devices to connect to the wireless network, so no IEEE
> 802.11b or mixed mode here.
> Changed 'Authentication' from 'Open System' to 'Shared Key' as I only
> want to use a 'secure' WEP enabled network.
>
> As I don't need 'Cloning' at this stage I changed the setting from
> 'Automatic' to 'Disabled'.
> At this stage, didn't change the password aswell, so still the default
here.
>
> Then pressed the 'Apply' key to save the changes made.
>
> Again the Power led begins to flicker and the 'Your changes have been
> saved. -continue-' message appears on the screen. Clicked on 'continue'
> to go back to the configuration page.
>
> At this stage the Status is 'Disconnected'.
>
> So I selected the right wireless network (as there are more) by pressing
> the little button on the left side of the screen to actually select the
> network to connect to and pressed the 'connect' button.
>
> So what I execpected here was the the WGA54G is going to make a
> connection to the Wireless network as selected, but noting happens here.
> The Wireless-G led flickers very flacky for a short period of time, but
> it's not able to connect to the network.
>
> The Status is still 'Disconnected'. :-(
>
> Strange thing however is when I checked on the 'Setup' page that the
> network I've previously selected is not selected anymore, aka it looks
> like the thing I've selected is not saved. So selected the network again
> and operformed a 'Apply' first.
> Again, the network I've previously selected is not selected anymore.
>
> Strange behaviour, this is probably not right !
>
> Are there more tricks ?
> Probably, disconnected the UTP cable and power cables from the WGA54G
> and booted it again to see if it comes up in the right status, so
> connected to my previously selected network.
>
> First connected the UTP cable again and then the power cable.
> WGA54G boots again and after a short while both the Power en Ethernet
> led lit steadily, looks ok from the outside, but still NO Wireless-G led
> lit, so this means not connected :-(
>
> Tried to check on the actual configuration of the device, but something
> strange happend aswell, when I issued a new Internet Explorer window and
> tried to connect to 192.168.1.250, it doen't work anymore, 'Not able to
> find the page'. I don't give up very easy so I 'disbled' and 'enabled'
> my ethernet port of the laptop and tried it again.
> Finally this helped and was able to get back into the Web configuration
> pages. Strange though, I would think....
>
> And now, how to proceed ???
> ---------------------------
> Yes, good question, I've tried all the things I could think of at the
> moment, but did not succeed to get it up and running :-(
>
> Help will be really appreciated .....
>
> Checked again and again on the configuration of my WAP54G, but this
> exacly matches the configuration of the WGA54G.
>
> Still 'Disconnected' :-((((
>
> M@rkwin

Your problem is with the Authentication setting. Although you want WEP
encryption enabled, you probably want WEP authentication set to Open.
Encryption and Authentication are two separate things. You must pass
authentication to associate with an AP. With Open authentication, everyone
passes. Once associated, WEP encryption controls whether your messages are
obscured to prevent meaningful eavesdropping.

WEP Shared Key authentication is flawed. It gives away too much information
about your key, so you are better off not using it. But the real issue is
that your computer and your AP must agree whether authentication is Open or
Shared Key.

BTW, I would set the transmission rate back from 54 Mbps to Automatic.
Wouldn't you like to be connected even when 54 Mbps isn't possible?

Ron Bandes, CCNP, CTT+, etc.

All,

Issue finally solved and what a solution !

So what was basically the issue here ?
I have a WGA54G and my network uses Wireless MAC Address Filtering.
I cannot get the WGA54G to connect wirelessly after entering the unit’s
MAC Address.

Solution:

The problem was caused by using the incorrect MAC address. The MAC
Address listed on the unit is for the WGA54G’s Ethernet port, not for
the Wireless connection !!!

The Wireless MAC Address (which must be used instead) can be calculated
by simply adding 1 higher to the last character of the MAC Address
listed on the unit. Numbered values will have a maximum value of 9, and
alphabetic will letters have a maximum value of F (hexadecimal
notation). Here's an example:

* Listed MAC: 00-00-00-00-00-01: Wireless MAC Address = 00-00-00-00-00-02

Should have thought about that ....., but is working fine now, great !!

Markwin


Markwin Romijn wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've got a Linksys WGA54G (you know the IEEE 802.1b/g Wireless Game
> Adapter) which you can connect to a Playstation2 or XBox, but I can't
> get it to work :-(
>
> If you take a look at the documentation, i.e. Quick Installation Guide
> and User Guide as provided with it, it should work out of the box
> ....... but in my case it doesn't.
>
> So here's my story, if you could please help me out on this one.
>
> Let me start with saying it is a new one in a sealed package, so it's
> not even from Ebay :-)
>
> What's wrong here .....
>
> According to the Quick Installation Guide I should hook up the WGA54G
> with the provided UTP cable to a PC Ethernet port. In this case it's my
> laptop.
>
> Note : The Ethernet port does't have a IP address assigned as it's
> configured for DHCP. According to the documentation provided this should
> be ok. Aka, it shout get an IP address from the WGA54G, or will use a
> 169.254.x.x. Windows default address.
>
> Action:
> So hooked up the WGA54G to the laptop (back-to-back) with the UTP cable
> (straight 1:1) as provided in the package and connected the Power supply
> to the WGA54G.
>
> Result:
> At this stage the Power and Ethernet leds are lit steadily, so this
> looks fine.
>
> Action:
> Then I inserted the provided CR with the WGA54G Setup Wizard (ver.1.05
> EU/LA) and executed the 'setup.exe' file. The setup wizard starts ....
>
> Action:
> Clicked on 'Setup' and the message 'Searching the WGA54G, please wait'
> appears (and counter 10-100%).
>
> Result :
> Message : 'The Setup Utility was unable to locate an Wireless-G Game
> Adapter on your network. Please make sure your Wireless-G Game Adapter
> is powered on and any cables are properly connected. -Continue-'
>
> As mentioned before the UTP cable was already connected to the Laptop
> UTP port and the power sully was already connected aswell, so the
> message provided doesn't bring me anything ...
>
> So what to do now ?
> I configured the static IP address of 192.168.1.1/24 on my laptops UTP
> port as I've seen in the User Guide that the default IP address of the
> WGA54G is 192.168.1.250/24. So both on the same network and using the
> same netmask. This should do the trick, as I thought ...
>
> Result:
> Same message here, the wizard doesn't find the WGA54G on the same
> network :-(
>
> What could I do more ?
> As I'm working on a laptop running Win2000 Prof. I thought maybe it's
> because I've changed the IP address on the fly, so I decided to reboot
> the whole machine and try the whole procedure as descibed above again.
>
> Result:
> Same message here, the wizard doesn't find the WGA54G on the same
> network :-(
>
> So I decided the Setup Wizard doesn't bring me any good here, let's try
> the Web based Interface.
>
> Action:
> Made a connection to 192.168.1.250 with Internet Explorer
> v.6.0.2800.1106CO (with SP1 and several Q-numbered Updates installed).
>
> Result:
> Finally received the Userid/Password screen :-)
> Entered the'Admin' password and I'm in, wow ..
>
> And now ?
> Checked on the firmware, it mentiones WGA54G, ETSI, v1.08, Juli 20,2003
> Looks ok, but to be sure I've the latest I did a check on
> ftp.linksys.com/international/.. and ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/.. and
> searched for firmware and setup wizard updates.
> Didn't manage to find both of them, so I concluded this was the latest
> firmware release and setup software available today.
>
> Secondly I checked the MAC Address of the device and this wonders me, on
> the device it stated MAC = 00:0C:41:5D:4B:39 and the Web Interface tells
> me the MAC address = 98:60:00:00:00:00. Strange ..
> I don't think this it's a bad thing or it will prohibit the device from
> working, but this is not right !!
>
> What else ?
> Configured the 'Setup' page with the following changes to the default
> setting.
> Checked on the SSID on my WAP54G and filled the right SSID in here.
> Checked on the WEP-key, 128 bit encryption, used the same passphrase and
> double checked the generated WEP-key numbers on both the WAP54G and
> WGA54G, they are both exactly the same, so this is right.
>
> The WGA54G found my Wirless Network so this looks promissing.
> Then pressed the 'Apply' key to save the changes made sofar.
>
> The Power led begins to flicker and the 'Your changes have been saved.
> -continue-' message appears on the screen. Clicked on 'continue' to go
> back to the configuration page.
>
> ok, until now this looks fine, then next to the 'Advanced' Page.
>
> Checked on the 'IP Address' configuration and this is fine
> Changed the 'Transmission rate' from 'Automatic' to '54 Mbps'
> Change the 'Mode' to 'G-only' as I only have and want to have IEEE
> 802.11g capable devices to connect to the wireless network, so no IEEE
> 802.11b or mixed mode here.
> Changed 'Authentication' from 'Open System' to 'Shared Key' as I only
> want to use a 'secure' WEP enabled network.
>
> As I don't need 'Cloning' at this stage I changed the setting from
> 'Automatic' to 'Disabled'.
> At this stage, didn't change the password aswell, so still the default
> here.
>
> Then pressed the 'Apply' key to save the changes made.
>
> Again the Power led begins to flicker and the 'Your changes have been
> saved. -continue-' message appears on the screen. Clicked on 'continue'
> to go back to the configuration page.
>
> At this stage the Status is 'Disconnected'.
>
> So I selected the right wireless network (as there are more) by pressing
> the little button on the left side of the screen to actually select the
> network to connect to and pressed the 'connect' button.
>
> So what I execpected here was the the WGA54G is going to make a
> connection to the Wireless network as selected, but noting happens here.
> The Wireless-G led flickers very flacky for a short period of time, but
> it's not able to connect to the network.
>
> The Status is still 'Disconnected'. :-(
>
> Strange thing however is when I checked on the 'Setup' page that the
> network I've previously selected is not selected anymore, aka it looks
> like the thing I've selected is not saved. So selected the network again
> and operformed a 'Apply' first.
> Again, the network I've previously selected is not selected anymore.
>
> Strange behaviour, this is probably not right !
>
> Are there more tricks ?
> Probably, disconnected the UTP cable and power cables from the WGA54G
> and booted it again to see if it comes up in the right status, so
> connected to my previously selected network.
>
> First connected the UTP cable again and then the power cable.
> WGA54G boots again and after a short while both the Power en Ethernet
> led lit steadily, looks ok from the outside, but still NO Wireless-G led
> lit, so this means not connected :-(
>
> Tried to check on the actual configuration of the device, but something
> strange happend aswell, when I issued a new Internet Explorer window and
> tried to connect to 192.168.1.250, it doen't work anymore, 'Not able to
> find the page'. I don't give up very easy so I 'disbled' and 'enabled'
> my ethernet port of the laptop and tried it again.
> Finally this helped and was able to get back into the Web configuration
> pages. Strange though, I would think....
>
> And now, how to proceed ???
> ---------------------------
> Yes, good question, I've tried all the things I could think of at the
> moment, but did not succeed to get it up and running :-(
>
> Help will be really appreciated .....
>
> Checked again and again on the configuration of my WAP54G, but this
> exacly matches the configuration of the WGA54G.
>
> Still 'Disconnected' :-((((
>
> M@rkwin
>