m wrote in message
(E-Mail Removed):
> Dr Zoidberg wrote:
>> SteveJ wrote:
>>
>>> One of the laptops on my wireless network has started asking for a
>>> network key, even though none is set.
>>> The other laptops work ok.
>>> I'm using a Belkin router\modem and running Windows XP SP2
>>
>>
>> Are you sure it's connecting to your router?
>> If your SSID is left as factory default one of your neighbours may
>> have bought a new router and it's trying to connect to that?
>
> It has just been pointed out to me that whereas most manufactureres set
> the SSID to be their name plus a randomly generated number, so that
> you don't connect to a different router than initially set up,
> Belkins are all set to Belkin54 and so this can happen
I think a lot of routers set their SSID to the company name, with no random
characters to make a unique name. Certainly Linksys and Netgear routers
default to (respectively) LINKSYS and NETGEAR. I was called to a customer
who had intermittent problems connecting to his router, and discovered that
there were four different routers with the name LINKSYS, all on Channel 11.
No wonder he had problems! I changed the SSID to a unique name and changed
to Channel 6 (after doing a NetStumbler scan to look for unused channels)
and everything worked a lot better.
Linear Mode
