Our home is finally wireless enabled. We had been thinking of doing away with the mess of wires for a long time now. It seemed a little inconvenient, having to get into the bedroom each time one of us wanted to check out something on the Internet or, in general, wanted to just surf around. It kinda defeated the entire purpose of possessing a laptop. Last night, I spent close to 3 hours figuring out how to get this setup in place. I am putting in the steps I went through trying to configure our new linksys WRT54G router with a Hathway Cable connection so that someone else may benefit from my experience.
Goal : Get online wirelessly.
Equipment : Motorola Cable modem (supplied by Hathway), Hathway Cable Connection, Linksys WRT54G router, HP Pavillion DV6703Tx laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium.
Steps :
1. Tried using the CD supplied with the Linksys router to configure the wireless network. Got stuck at step 6 while trying to "detect the computer settings". It kept prompting for a password. A quick google search revealed that many linksys users had, in fact, reported facing the same problem. Someone, recommended doing a reset on the router. Tried that... unfortunately, it did not work :(
2. Decided to chuck the CD, roll up my sleeves & do it the dirty way. First connected the router to the modem, then used the CAT6 supplied with the router to connect it to the RJ45 on the Pavillion. Hathway provides static IP addresses to its users (why?). Set the properties of the LAN connection on the laptop to "Get an IP address automatically". The DHCP server in the router, assigned an IP address to the laptop. Fired up IE & logged into the admin page of the router using -
http://192.168.1.1/.
The username field is to be left blank & the default password is "admin".
3. Went under Setup > Basic Setup tab.
Specified the IP address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, DNS server 1 & 2 supplied by Hathway under Internet Setup.
The only other change made on this page was to the Time Settings.
4. Went to the Wireless > Basic Wireless Settings tab.
Changed the SSID to what I wanted.
Went to the Wireless > Wireless Security tab.
Changed the Security mode to "WPA Personal". Specified a WPA Shared Key (a passphrase).
Forgot to mention, the linksys admin page needs you to click on the Save Settings button everytime you make any changes to the page.
5. Went to the Administration > Management tab & changed the default password for the router's admin page.
6. That is it... Turned on the wireless button & "Viewed the Available Wireless Networks" on the laptop. It detected the wireless network I had created & also connected to it without a hitch. So far it all semed pretty good. Tried to fire up IE & go to Google. Oops! "Page cannot be displayed". :((
7. That is the point where I was suddenly left clueless. Shouldn't the router, by default, act as a gateway & allow me to connect to the Internet through it. Dismantled the entire setup, used the old wired way to go online & did some more googling. Finally figured out that some ISPs associate the IP addresses they supply with the MAC address of your computer's NIC. Same is the case with Hathway. There are two way to get around this -
(a) Call up your ISP and ask them to reset your MAC address in their records. NOTE - This must be done WITH the router connected to the modem.
(b) Clone your NIC's (wired) MAC address on the router using the "Clone your PC's MAC" option given under the Setup > MAC Address Clone" tab.
I chose the first option. A quick call to Hathway later (Thank God for 24*7 tech support!), I was next to bacchi, in our living room, surfing the Net, in peace, wirelessly. :)
