Wireless Network Assistance required

[C']

Need the assistance of our resident experts once again

I have a cable modem in my NTL set top box which is connected to a Belkin Wireless Router. I have 2 computers that are set up with Actiontec 11 Mbps USB Wireless Adaptor.

This setup has been in place since last December and was working fine until I left for work this morning. I have returned home and the Wireless connection on my computer is no longer working but everything is fine on my brother's computer. From what I can gather he has, for some reason, decided to swap the wireless adaptors and made some changes to the router settings (he mentioned something about changing WEP - is meaningless to me). Apparently he has swapped the Wireless adaptors back but I am still left without any connection via the wireless setup.

Going into Network Connections now only shows my Local Area Connection that I have reactivated via Ethernet in order to get a net connection back. There is no sign of the Wireless Network Connection icon that used to be present (and is still present on the other computer).

I have attempted to reinstall the drivers of the wireless adaptor but halfway through installation it asks that I right click on the Wireless Network Connection icon which I obviously cannot do.

Am really at a stumbling block and any advice that can be supplied would be greatly appreciated. I am getting no assistance from the person who has created this mess as he refuses to properly answer any questions about what he has done and I have been left to try and sort this mess up myself.

Oh I have attempted to System Restore to Monday (there was no System Checkpoint for yesterday) which does solve the problem however, doing that seems to completely corrupt my installation of Final Fantasy XI and it refuses to be reinstalled or uninstalled so I undid the System Restore and have to solve this problem as the machine is now.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Fei Fong Wong]

Well, as your brother mentioned changing the WEP settings I would guess this is the problem. WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is an encryption method used to protect wireless networks using 64-bit or 128-bit keys to provide access control and encryption security for every data transmission. To decode data transmissions, all devices in the network must use an identical WEP key.

I would therefore guess that the problem is the working PC is the one your brother changed the WEP key on and the non-working PC isn't working because it hasn't got the correct key. To fix it you need to authorise both PC's with the same WEP key. I hope your brother knows what he changed it to.

Let me know how you get on.

[C']

ok he asked him about what you suggested, and he said he has removed the WEP key already and the problem still remains.

[Fei Fong Wong]

Ok, if it's still not working I'm not sure that the WEP key has been removed correctly. My best suggestion, as I'm not familiar with your router, is to reset the router to the manufacturers default settings (there should be a reset button on the router somewhere). I know this will mean you have to set up your router again but it will definetely remove any WEP key present and it's still easier than reinstalling FFXI - I know how much of a bitch that is with downloading updates!

Of course open to any suggestions anyone else might have who's familiar with your router.

[C']

OK mate, I?ll try reseting the router when I get home from work (only 6 hours to go _). I?ll be honest and say I?m uncertain if it will work. From what I can tell the real problem seems to be the lack of Wireless Connection icon in my Network Connections window.

From what I can gather according to the installation this is supposed to be there during driver installation but it won? reappear. I?ve tried uninstalling the Wireless Adaptor via Device Manager and removing it and reattaching to the USB port. Windows recognises the device but mentions something about drivers not being certified. I try accepting anyway and it asks for the CD to be inserted. I do this but it completely fails to find any valid driver files. I got the drivers to eventually install (forget how) and whilst the adaptor was listed under Device Manager (although it suffixes #4 after the name of the device) Wireless Network still refuses to appear under Network Connections.

I?ve got a feeling that maybe I?ve got some horrible mish-mash of drivers installed at the moment with no idea how to purge the whole lot from my system in an attempt to start from scratch.

Oh and the problem with FFXI is greater than simply being a case of reinstalling. If it was I?d use System Restore and put up with the few hours of update that would be required. However, after restoring the computer to Monday the installation becomes horribly corrupted and refuses to uninstall >_<

[Fei Fong Wong]

Well, if the router reset hasn't worked I can't really help anymore. I would have suggested you uninstall the device from device manager but you've already tried that. Did you uninstall it and then reboot or did you just uninstall and the reinstall it? I beleive it sometimes helps to reboot before you attempt to reinstall a device. Windows should find it when you log on and prompt you to then install it but if you have the same problem you describe with it not being able to find the driver then I'm out of suggestions.

Only other thing that I can think of is if it is a conflict of some sort the issue may be known and posted on the manufacturers website. There may even be a new driver to download.

Hope you get it fixed mate.

[C']

Cheers mate, I spent a couple of hours trying a few more things when I got home from, checked the Net for answers and nothing so I used System Restore again and went to work on trying to fix the corrupted FFXI installation.

Remarkably after some degree of messing around FFXI seemed to finally uninstall. Managed to reinstall it and am now going through the process of downloading the updates (which are taking forever >_<)

Thanks for the help mate