MadManMike Posted August 20, 2006 Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 Just playing with my laptops, and trying to set up networking via WiFi. I actually (surprisingly!) got bluetooth to network, but I cannot get the WiFi to connect. I think I just need some guidance on how the stuff works. First, the hardware: Acer 3210 running XPProSP2. This machine is connected by direct cable to ADSL. Internet connection works fine. Running Bluetooth Network on it, sharing the internet connection. Other puter: Toshiba 5150-s901, XPProSP2. The Bluetooth connection works fine, I access the net thru the Acer, no problems. I run all the network setup wizards, and have wireless network connections setup on both machines, but both of them report that there are no wireless networks available. I ran the wizard to setup a wireless network on the Acer, and finally got the Toshiba to connect to the Acer using WiFi, but it reports that although connected, the signal strength is zero, and while the toshiba gets an IP address, there is not internet or gateways or anything. And even though my Toshiba says it is connected, both computers still report that there are no wireless networks available. So, any help is much appreciated. It is not something I require, but I just want to see if it can be done, and also, I understand my wireless connection will be 2mbits, double what the Bluetooth connection is. Anyway, thanks for reading this, and thanks in advance for any advice you can give. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabrice Roux Posted August 20, 2006 Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 This is my finst technical post of the day... so let me rephrase what I understood. You want to share your internet connection on 2 WiFi enabled laptops. Beside the laptops hardware wise you only have an ethernet cable modem. You have no router or wireless access point. The default usage of WiFi is the "infrastructure mode" which means that there is a wireless access point. Given your hardware you need to use the "ad-hoc mode" that doesn't require the access point. Believe me you'd rather buy a Wireless router such as the Netgear WGR614. It's really inexpensive (50?/$) and allows to duplicate the MAC address of your main network card if your cable modem works on only one MAC address. Plus it allows to lock the access to your network to only the known MAC addresses of your WiFi cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadManMike Posted August 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 This is my finst technical post of the day... so let me rephrase what I understood.You want to share your internet connection on 2 WiFi enabled laptops. Beside the laptops hardware wise you only have an ethernet cable modem. You have no router or wireless access point. The default usage of WiFi is the "infrastructure mode" which means that there is a wireless access point. Given your hardware you need to use the "ad-hoc mode" that doesn't require the access point. Believe me you'd rather buy a Wireless router such as the Netgear WGR614. It's really inexpensive (50€/$) and allows to duplicate the MAC address of your main network card if your cable modem works on only one MAC address. Plus it allows to lock the access to your network to only the known MAC addresses of your WiFi cards. Yes, you understand my setup. And I was afraid that might be the answser. I mean, AdHoc should be possible, but I can remember having trouble setting up one a few years ago, and now that you mention it, I think we solved the problem by buying a router. I reckon I will pull the trigger and get one....thanx so much for the speedy response. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted August 20, 2006 Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 I tried this at the beach between a few laptops but it didn't work so well. Best bet if you wanted to try that would be linux and maybe a special wifi card and router type software. (connection kept dropping, had IP asigning problems, ect) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabrice Roux Posted August 20, 2006 Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 It works between Nintendo DS... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Lead_Factor Posted August 22, 2006 Report Share Posted August 22, 2006 And PSP's but they have Wifi cards built for doing that normaly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andru123 Posted September 10, 2006 Report Share Posted September 10, 2006 So did you get it working? How far are the devices? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted September 10, 2006 Report Share Posted September 10, 2006 The short answer is just buy a small router and bring it with you in situations like this, much simpler and easier to set up and actually get working. Linksys makes some nice small ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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