netgear dg824m wep problems

Hi

Running the above router (latest firmware) without wep all is fine - when I
configured wep nothing wireless worked anymore clearing the wep setup made
the wirless links work again. Is this known problem or can anyone help.
I've only tried the 128bit and I think the problem is centered on inputing
the passphrase into the xp machines - do I just need to put the same word in
the router and the xp machines?

2nd question if I set it up just to work with mac addresses do I need wep at
all?

Thanks for any help

Ian

"ian" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:bonr92$fhv$(E-Mail Removed):
> 2nd question if I set it up just to work with mac addresses do I need
> wep at all?

I have just set my DG824 to check MAC addresses. WEP is
not totally secure anyway, plus we live in the middle of
nowhere and our cottage walls are two foot thick which
makes external signal reception poor ;-)

Alan Poulter
(E-Mail Removed)

ian <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

: I've only tried the 128bit and I think the problem is centered on inputing
: the passphrase into the xp machines - do I just need to put the same word in
: the router and the xp machines?

I have a similar setup. I *HAVE* got what you describe to work. You do realise
that the passphrase is ONLY used to generate the hexadecimal key that WEP
really uses?

I did not think that XP's built in wireless networking handled pass-phrases
at all! What I did used a pass-phrase on the DG824 to generate the 13 pairs
of hex digits needed for 128-bit WEP -and noted these down. Typing them in
when asked by XP (when connecting to a WEP enabled AP) worked. XP stores the
key so it only needs done once.

: 2nd question if I set it up just to work with mac addresses do I need wep at
: all?

Using the MAC address feature will stop anyone unauthorised from being able
to illicilly use your router and broadband connection. The data between laptop
and router will still be sent in the clear. My router is used at home and,
when I thought about this, I decided that this level of security was just
fine for me. HTTPS connections, for example, already encrypt the data
before sending it over any link.

Alan & Brian

thanks to you both - my adsl connection only went live at 10 pm last night
(3 days early) so I had a late night mucking around with it. Guess I'll sit
down tonight and reconfigure it from scratch with less savignon blanc in my
blood!

I've had a peer to peer network for 12 months with wep enabled without
problems but I couldn't for the life of me work out what I did to get it to
work when I installed the adpators!

Cheers

Ian



"Brian McIlwrath" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:boo2rv$(E-Mail Removed)...
> ian <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> : I've only tried the 128bit and I think the problem is centered on
inputing
> : the passphrase into the xp machines - do I just need to put the same
word in
> : the router and the xp machines?
>
> I have a similar setup. I *HAVE* got what you describe to work. You do
realise
> that the passphrase is ONLY used to generate the hexadecimal key that WEP
> really uses?
>
> I did not think that XP's built in wireless networking handled
pass-phrases
> at all! What I did used a pass-phrase on the DG824 to generate the 13
pairs
> of hex digits needed for 128-bit WEP -and noted these down. Typing them in
> when asked by XP (when connecting to a WEP enabled AP) worked. XP stores
the
> key so it only needs done once.
>
> : 2nd question if I set it up just to work with mac addresses do I need
wep at
> : all?
>
> Using the MAC address feature will stop anyone unauthorised from being
able
> to illicilly use your router and broadband connection. The data between
laptop
> and router will still be sent in the clear. My router is used at home and,
> when I thought about this, I decided that this level of security was just
> fine for me. HTTPS connections, for example, already encrypt the data
> before sending it over any link.