Netgear WG602 & Vista

[aescott]

Hi

I have been searching here and Google and haven't found what I need, so apologies if this is covered elsewhere.

A friend of my wife has a new Vista laptop to replace her old XP desktop. The laptop connects fine to the internet in my house. However, her house has a PACE set-top box and a Netgear WG602 v3 wireless access point. I cannot get Vista to access the wireless connection.

Firstly, Vista tells me that the 6-digit passphrase is too short - it needs either 5 or 13 characters. I found a site which generated 128-bit WEP codes from 6-digit passphrases (it managed my own WEP key perfectly) but that doesn't work either.

From browsing the net, it seems that the Netgear equipment isn't compatible with Vista.

After many hours on the phone, we've finally managed to get a Virgin engineer booked to come out; however, the cost is £99 before any parts are supplied. I have not been impressed at all with the Customer Service - if it ain't on the script, they don't know what to do. They can't even find a record of the WAP which Telewest supplied on their system and hung up on me when I tried to speak to a supervisor.

My question (after all that!) is this: Would a shop-bought wireless router, plugged into the set-top box, do the job? The current wireless network is security-enabled - I assume that this is unique to the WAP and not the set-top box. I don't want to buy a bit of kit which still won't work, leaving us with the call-out anyway, but think that this should be a solvanle problem.

You should be able to use any old cable wireless broadband router with your STB setup. The only complication may be that when you swap the kit, you may need to reprovision your cable connection - if your area still requires old fashioned provisioning.

Ideally you should be using WPA2 for wireless encryption - WEP really isn't very secure.

[aescott]

OK - but what does "reprovisioning" mean? Is there any way of checking that from the 'phone number? My aim is to save about £100 - my friend has already spent nearly £1,000 on new kit and is getting a bit hacked off with Virgin.

FYI - the installation of cable was done about 5 years ago, the broadband set-up about 4 years ago.

If an unregistered MAC address is detected, it may not be given access to the internet. When you try to browse, you may get a page appear on screen asking you to provision the PC. You'll need to enter a username and password at this point, and then reboot the STB and the router. It's as simple as it sounds, assuming you have the required login details.

[Zhadnost]

Sometimes in some areas the web page doesn't come up and you get a continuous hourglass (before a tech jumps in and tells me I'm wrong, I have seen this on a number of occasions).

Usually going to autoreg.autoregister.net will take you to the page.

This is an ex-ntl issue. (although I vaguely remember someone saying that it was going to be rolled out throughout the rest of the network).

[aescott]

OK - so presumably, if the laptop were to be connected directly to the STB via the ethernet cable and the internet connection worked, then a new router would do the trick?

When you say "ex-NTL", do you know whether this aplies to the old Telewest networks?

If there is any other configuration to be done, then I reckon that I'll leave that to the engineer on Friday - I want Virgin to have the responsibility for supporting this afterwards and my experience has not been great so far.

As an afterthought, does anyone know whether the engineer should be able to get the Netgear box working with a Vista PC? Also, the fact that only one PC can use the connection at a time is a bit restrictive.

In honesty, meaning no lack of respect, if you need to ask all these questions then you are probably better off having an engineer visit. If you don't really know what you are doing, these things can be complicated. Maybe you have a friend/neighbour with a teenage son who could fix it all for you?

I can't see any reason why you can't get it working with Vista, it should just work.

[Zhadnost]

Originally Posted by aescott

When you say "ex-NTL", do you know whether this aplies to the old Telewest networks?

No, this doesn't apply to ex-Telewest areas.

[aescott]

Originally Posted by ro53ben

In honesty, meaning no lack of respect, if you need to ask all these questions then you are probably better off having an engineer visit. If you don't really know what you are doing, these things can be complicated. Maybe you have a friend/neighbour with a teenage son who could fix it all for you?

I can't see any reason why you can't get it working with Vista, it should just work.

OK, the reason I am asking these questions is to make sure that there are no odd settings with Telewest boxes. Other posts have indicated a need for "re-provisioning", something which I have never heard of. I have set up a number of wireless home networks and have configured PCs for both Windows and Linux to access these networks as both static and dynamic clients.

Regarding Vista, the passphrase for the WAP is 6 characters. WEP requires either 5 or 13, so the system won't accept it. I've been unable to get any help so far from Virgin.

I know you're trying to be helpful, but comments like "get a friend's teenage son" to fix it aren't very useful. Are you suggesting that I shouldn't be asking as many relevant questions as possible before getting stuck into the network? I do prefer to be armed with as much information as possible. I have to say that, given an engineer will charge £100+ for what should be a simple task, and given my experience with the support so far, the more I can do myself, the better.

Originally Posted by aescott

I have set up a number of wireless home networks and have configured PCs for both Windows and Linux to access these networks as both static and dynamic clients.

Regarding Vista, the passphrase for the WAP is 6 characters. WEP requires either 5 or 13, so the system won't accept it.

Which should have led you to deduce that the WEP passphrase for the WAP isn't 6 characters. The password to log into the WAP may well be 6 characters long, but this cannot be in use for wireless access unless an alternate cipher such as WPA or AES is in use. The WEP shared key will be 5 or 13 characters - if you have a 6 character key somewhere, it's the wrong one and this is why it doesn't work in Vista.

[Milambar]

The WG602 is a wireless access point. Theres no such thing as "vista compatable" wireless access points, as no drivers are needed. They don't actually care what OS you use. If your OS can communicate via wireless, then the 602 will talk to them quite happily.

The WG602 is an older model but can still handle unencrypted communications, WEP64, WEP128, and WPA-PSK. It can even fetch a custom firmware image off the network its connected to via tftp (but thats getting technical). I have one still in use as an extender, and have no issues with it. I have Vista machines, Linux machines and XP machines all in use. They all work fine with it.

However, do not use a passphrase, log into the AP (access point), and use the tools built into the AP to generate a hexdecimal key, then use that key to connect all the PC's. I've never had success using a passphrase, and always generate a key via the access point.

Just to make absolutly clear though, it is NOT a router. It is just a dumb wireless access point, and as such, carries no security features such as a firewall, packet inspection, etc.

[aescott]

Milamber

Thanks - that is exactly what I need. I'll have another look at this. Thanks again.