Trying to connect a Windows XP PC to a D-Link Router via Apple Airport

I've got Bulldog Broadband and use an Apple Airport to connect my OS
10.4.4 iMac to a D-Link DSL-502T ADSL router for wireless broadband.
After a lot of teething troubles it now works ticketty-boo.

But I want to wirelessly connect a Windows XP PC to the network too.
The PC wireless modem recognises the Airport, says it's connected...
but we can't get any data of any kind down the line. It keeps asking
for the WEP key.

I have called Bulldog who say the WEP key does not reside on their
system. Can anyone tell me
a] Is it in the Airport and if so, how can I find it?
b] Is it in the D-Link router and if so, how can I find it?

We're in the end zone of having a fully wired household and if anyone
could tell me what to do here I'd be very grateful. Thanks, DROID

"Nndroid" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> I've got Bulldog Broadband and use an Apple Airport to connect my OS
> 10.4.4 iMac to a D-Link DSL-502T ADSL router for wireless broadband.
> After a lot of teething troubles it now works ticketty-boo.
>
> But I want to wirelessly connect a Windows XP PC to the network too.
> The PC wireless modem recognises the Airport, says it's connected...
> but we can't get any data of any kind down the line. It keeps asking
> for the WEP key.
>
> I have called Bulldog who say the WEP key does not reside on their
> system. Can anyone tell me
> a] Is it in the Airport and if so, how can I find it?
> b] Is it in the D-Link router and if so, how can I find it?
>
> We're in the end zone of having a fully wired household and if anyone
> could tell me what to do here I'd be very grateful. Thanks, DROID
>
The WEP key is something you or a friend has typed in to the configuration
page of the router.
I would say to go into the setup on the router, then switch off WEP and go
for "WPA" instead. Type in the key, then connect via the wireless computer
and type in the same key when it asks - that's all you need to do. If you
can't get in to the setup of the router, do a complete reset. When the
computer detects it, it will not ask for a key, it will just connect. That
way you can go to http://192.168.1.1 or whatever it is and change
everything. The user name on DLINK is normally admin and password is admin.
If you don't put security on then all your neighbours will have a free
connection.

There is an option on some routers to get a WPA key from a server, some
companies have them and I haven't seen any ISP offering that yet. The
instructions for DLINK equipment is substandard by the way, if you hadn't
noticed. They tell you how to get the router working then don't tell you
how to make it secure!

Nndroid wrote:

> The PC wireless modem recognises the Airport, says it's connected...
> but we can't get any data of any kind down the line. It keeps asking
> for the WEP key.

> I have called Bulldog who say the WEP key does not reside on their
> system. Can anyone tell me
> a] Is it in the Airport and if so, how can I find it?
> b] Is it in the D-Link router and if so, how can I find it?

Both router and PC need to have a matching encryption key. It's going
to be set in your router (I assume the PC is saying that is has found
a network, and that the network is using encryption, hence asking to
have the key). Check your router settings, there's presumably some
key (which I'd have thought you'd have needed to set up, perhaps a
'pass phrase' was what you entered, and that may then be used for
generating up to 4 keys (as 5 or 13 hexadecimal pairs - ie 10 or
26 characters, depending on the number of WEP bits being used).

I'm not familiar with your router, so cannot point you to particular
settings (I've helped friends with Belkin and Linksys routers but I
have no wireless kit here at all, at present).

The WEP key is used only on your wireless link and nothing to do with
the ISP, which is why you'd have had no joy from Bulldog. HTH. Peter


PS http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum...es.cfm?t=86201
section 2.5 mentions WEP, but there are no doubt plenty of other
guides around, and the router manual may include more, or screen
images.

I had difficulties as well on the opposite side of the spectrum.
Getting my new iMac to work with an older Linksys router. You may wish
to try one of the following:

a) instead of entering an ASCII WEP password, convert it to HEX. This
removes any sort of padding of data used by the hardware devices. Your
ASCII password ends up getting converted to HEX at the device level.
From previous research, it appears that ASCII WEP was not formally
standardized.

b) change the number of password characters to thirteen (13) for 128 bit
encryption. Another kludge which helps eliminate the padding affect.
If you are using 40/64 bit encryption, then the password would be five
(5) characters - 40/64 bit is not recommended.

If your router and other devices support WPA, then you should be using
that instead. Not only is it more secure, yet the encryption
compatibility foibles seem to have been cleaned up.

In my situation, I had to perform both tasks above. Now the cats
(Apple) and dogs (WinTel) are civil to each other on the network.

Good luck,
Joe


In article <(E-Mail Removed) .com>,
"Nndroid" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I've got Bulldog Broadband and use an Apple Airport to connect my OS
> 10.4.4 iMac to a D-Link DSL-502T ADSL router for wireless broadband.
> After a lot of teething troubles it now works ticketty-boo.
>
> But I want to wirelessly connect a Windows XP PC to the network too.
> The PC wireless modem recognises the Airport, says it's connected...
> but we can't get any data of any kind down the line. It keeps asking
> for the WEP key.
>
> I have called Bulldog who say the WEP key does not reside on their
> system. Can anyone tell me
> a] Is it in the Airport and if so, how can I find it?
> b] Is it in the D-Link router and if so, how can I find it?
>
> We're in the end zone of having a fully wired household and if anyone
> could tell me what to do here I'd be very grateful. Thanks, DROID

--
Tired Tech

Nndroid wrote:
> I've got Bulldog Broadband and use an Apple Airport to connect my OS
> 10.4.4 iMac to a D-Link DSL-502T ADSL router for wireless broadband.
> After a lot of teething troubles it now works ticketty-boo.
>
> But I want to wirelessly connect a Windows XP PC to the network too.
> The PC wireless modem recognises the Airport, says it's connected...
> but we can't get any data of any kind down the line. It keeps asking
> for the WEP key.
>
> I have called Bulldog who say the WEP key does not reside on their
> system. Can anyone tell me
> a] Is it in the Airport and if so, how can I find it?
> b] Is it in the D-Link router and if so, how can I find it?

It's in the Airport. The D-Link router has got nothing to do with the
wireless part of your network so ignore it. The WEP key is a security
key that the Airport is using to encrypt data sent over wireless. This
is to make it more difficult for other people to use your internet
connection (eg. to do things that later, your ISP will say that you
did). It doesn't make it impossible, but it stops casual use by people
who stumble on your network by accident. Have a look at the instructions
for the Airport at the security section. You must have already had to
enter the WEP key on the iMac, presumably, unless Apple have a clever
way of doing it. It should be possible to get the Airport to tell the
iMac or a wired computer on the network what the WEP key is. If it is,
enter this on the XP box.

I think Apple Airports support WPA encryption. You will need to find out
if the iMac does as well, and if the XP box can do WPA. If they all can,
then you should use this instead of WEP. Again the configuration will
start with the Airport (best to use a computer that's connected to the
network with a wire, because you could end up locking all the wireless
machines out of the network at this point. Switch the Airport over to
WPA and write down the key. Then switch over the iMac and tell it the
WPA key, and then the XP box. Hopefully everything should still work,
and the network will run faster and be much more secure. Sorry I can't
give you ultraspecific instructions but you should be able to get the
documentation for the Airport, the wireless card in the iMac, and the
wireless card in your XP box, and they should tell you how to do this.
If they don't mention WPA, then it's probably not supported and you'll
have to stick with WEP.

--
Phil

http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/31307.html

Thanks for all the advice above. We've got over the WEP hurdle and the
PC is now connecting to the network... but it's saying LIMITED OR NO
CONNECTIVITY.

It appears that the PC is refusing to allow the Airport to allocate it
an IP address. The PC's IP address is 169.254.174.220 rather than the
192.xxxx that Airport uses. I know this is a Windows issue rather than
a Mac one, but does anyone know how we can get the PC to do as the
Airport tells it and accept an IP address? Again, many thanks for any
pointers. DROID

Nndroid wrote:
>
> Thanks for all the advice above. We've got over the WEP hurdle and the
> PC is now connecting to the network... but it's saying LIMITED OR NO
> CONNECTIVITY.
>
> It appears that the PC is refusing to allow the Airport to allocate it
> an IP address. The PC's IP address is 169.254.174.220 rather than the
> 192.xxxx that Airport uses. I know this is a Windows issue rather than
> a Mac one, but does anyone know how we can get the PC to do as the
> Airport tells it and accept an IP address? Again, many thanks for any
> pointers. DROID

The PC is not accepting the addres given, could be...

Control Panel
Network Connections
LAN connection properties
TCPIP properties
'Obtain IP address automatically'
or thereabouts

Bill

Thanks for this. After much faffing about we finally worked out that...
A] the WEP key is something you enter into the Airport yourself when
activating WEP security
B] Airport then translates that into a hexidecimal key which you can
see by clicking PASSWORD in the Airport Admin utility
C] You can then enter the hex version into Windows XP as it tries to
connect to the Airport and bingo, you're in.

Thanks for all your help, DROID