Wireless "Unidentified Network" Local Access Only

AbsoluteZero

So I bought a new router WRT54GL to replace an aging Belkin router that I was getting very tired of resetting every 20 minutes to keep the internet going.

So far so good under the new router, all devices working... until my girlfriend fired up her laptop (Windows Vista). No matter what I do the connection comes up "Unidentified Network" with local access only.. so no internet. I'm running the exact same configuration as the old router. I have no idea why it won't work. I have tried a billion things.

Does anyone have a solution for this?

W2

I once had the same problem (on a WEP-secured WRT54GL) and it turned out I had to enter the actual passkey, and not the passphrase the keys are generated from. At that point the router assigned an IP address properly and everything worked.

Anecdotal, though, so your mileage may vary.

Hahnsoo1

First, try running it temporarily with absolutely no security. If it fails that, try running the laptop at lower settings (i.e. start out with 802.11g, then go to 802.11b, then go lower if it's possible... you should be able to set that up through the device drivers for the laptop's wireless).

Zxerol

A friend had this issue when he brought his rig to a LAN party, and it turned out that Bonjour zeroconf (installed with Gizmo on his system) was bugging out on the new network something fierce. Uninstalled, and good runnings again.

MichaelLC

Have you tried adding the network through the wizard, instead of waiting for the machine to pick it up? I've had this problem occur when the SSID Broadcast is set to Off.

AbsoluteZero

No dice, guys. Not a damn thing seems to work. I haven't a clue why this router works fine with all the other devices in my house (including my personal laptop which also runs vista) but not my gf's laptop.

I plugged the old router back in and bingo, works perfectly. Even with the exact same configuration. I'm flabbergasted.

MichaelLC

Searching for 'WRT54GL and Vista' seems to come up with a lot.

Some ideas;
- Disable IPv6.
- "On laptop, click on wiress icon in taskbar, go to Open Network And Sharing Center>> Change adapter settings>>right click on wireless adapter >> properties >> Configure >> Advanced tab. Scroll down to select "IBSS Mode" and check the Value on right side. It should be same same as that of router (I set to 802.11b/g auto from drop down list as on router side it was set as MIXED). Click Ok to save the settings."

DeShadowC

Try giving the router a new network name, and passkey, and attempt to connect your girlfriend's laptop to that.

Rikushix

What kind of laptop is it?

mehmehmeh

if you got the WRT54GL (L for linux) you could try a different open source firmware. I am partial to Tomato but have heard good things about dd-wrt. The opensource firmwares are very configurable and powerful. tomato has nice bandwidth graphs.

also what DeShadowC said, give the network a new name, her computer might be using some odd setting since it thinks it is connecting to the old router because the network name is the same. You can just add a 2 or something to the end of the network name.

Glirk Dient

Go into the routers config page and reset to factory defaults and see if that fixes things. Also go into the wireless page and change the SSID or check to make sure there is one.

Hahnsoo1

If other devices run fine on the router, it's more likely to be a problem with a setting on the laptop. I don't think any amount of finagling with the router will give a positive result. What kind of laptop is it? Model, manufacturer, specs, network card type, etc.

You can also try a USB wireless dongle on the laptop and see if it works with that. If it does, then not only do you have a temporary solution but it's more likely to be the laptop's network adapter.