Why is setting up wireless so difficult:
When people buy a wireless router and get it home, you would expect to plug it in and that would be it - your wireless! This is so far from that actual facts. Setting up a wireless router is not so easy, even if you follow the instructions.
Major router manufacturers like linksys, belkin, dlink, netgear, etc all design amazing routers. We here at The EasyPC Company has installed hundreds of these brands and can un-biasedly say that there is no router that has that little extra. They are all good, and worth their money. The one factor that is hinders these routers is the setup of these wireless routers.
The Usual Wireless Key Problem:
Most routers come prepacked with a wireless key. A wireless key is usually a 10 digits (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F). The problem people find is when they plug in their router they get no connection or they get a "Connected with limited connectivity" error and do not know what is going wrong for them to not connect to the internet. Well now you can see this 'usually' mean that wireless key has not been entered into the PC or Laptop correctly or even at all. If you have entered your wireless key in incorrectly then follow the link below on how to wipe your key and start again.
Where is my wireless key?
On a growing number of wireless routers, manufacturers are not putting the Wireless Key in an easy to find place. Some routers you will find the Network Key on a sticker inside the manual, CD sleve, a seperate piece of paper, on a sticker on the side of the box, and some times on the underside of the actual router. In the case of the your router not being supplied with a wireless key which has happened, then you will need to log into you router to find out manually what your key is. This might sound daunting but if you follow the guide below you will safely be able to log on to your router within minutes.
How to wipe an incorrectly entered wireless key:
If you type in a a Wireless key incorrectly, its can be difficult to find what to do to remove the key out of your computers memory. Once you connect once to a wifi network, the PC will instantly save the wifi key you entered in. The methods on removing the key are completely different depending on which version of windows you are running.
Windows XP Version (non photographic) |
Windows Vista Version (non photographic) |
- Click 'Start'
- Click 'Control Panel'
- Click 'Network Connections'
- Right Mouse Click 'Your wireless network connection'
- Click 'Properties'
- Click The 'Wireless Networks' Tab at the top of the
window
- Make sure the check box is ticked next to 'Use Windows
to configure my wireless network settings'
- Locate your routers SSID/Name in the 'Preferred
Networks:' section and click
- Click 'Remove'
- Finish up by clicking 'ok' at the bottom of the window
- You have removed the wireless key from your PCs
memory and can now rescan again for your wireless
router
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- Click 'Start'
- Click 'Network'
- Click 'Network and sharing center'
- Click 'Manage Wireless Connection'
- Click Your router's SSID/Name
- Click 'Remove - '
- Click 'OK' on the message window that pops up
- Thats it, rescan for your router again and it will ask
ask for your network key from fresh.
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Definitions:
SSID (Service Set Identifier)
Definition: An SSID is the name of a wireless local area network (WLAN). All wireless devices on a WLAN must employ the same SSID in order to communicate with each other.
WIRELESS NETWORK KEY
Definition: The key that is assigned by you or the manufacturer, that allows authorised access to the router in question. The key is there in place to deny access to your router from any unwanted/unauthorised users
WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
Definition: The privacy protocol specified in IEEE 802.11 to provide wireless LAN users protection against casual eavesdropping. WEP is to provide a privacy service to wireless LAN users similar to that provided by the physical security inherent in a wired LAN. A WEP Key usually consist of 10 digits which you can change personally.
WIRELESS CHANNEL:
Definition: Different parts of the world use different technology. In the same principle of NTSC for USA and PAL for the UK, the UK usually transmits on channels 6 (2.437mhz) & 11 (2.462mhz) as that is the 'standard' frequency that the UK's technology follow.
Default username and passwords for routers:
Below is a list of the top brands routers and their manufactured default settings eg. username and password, IP addresses.
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