NIC vs USB wireless adapter

[lybush]

Hi All,

I've got a problem with my wireless router and system.
It usually works fine as long as I use the installed NIC. I have a cable modem, wireless Farallon router and only one system running WIN 98 SE and the NIC is connected to the router port.
Sometime, my system freezes and I am suspecting the NIC. So, I also have a USB wireless adapter which I install and try to connect wirelessly. It is a MA101 Netgear and I know it works as I tried it on another system.

The problem is nothing recognizes it as my connection to the router. Not my firewall or IE or Outlook Express. I disabled the NIC and the adapter program shows good transfers, but my firewall and everything else do not ever know it should connect through it.

Any advice as to get the USB adapter to work?

Thanks, Len

[lybush]

Some help for this problem would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

Len

[Greenstead]

Some ideas.

It could be the firewall casuing the problem. I would disable it until things work.

Ensure windows and the router firmware are up-to-date.

Another thought. Windows use 'metrics' to decide which connection to use i.e. it should select the fastest connection to reach a destination - so it would always use the NIC if enabled. So you have to disable the NIC to make it use the wireless connection.

Try that and see what happens. If still no connection with IE come back with an output from winipcfg and post here.

[lybush]

Thanks for your reply.

The NIC is disabled in 'device manager' and even the bottom box is unchecked also. So, it shouldn't exist anyplace.

When I run winipcfg, nothing shows on screen one from the drop down box where the NIC used to be. There is only one entry there now, I think, it is PPP. The wireless USB adapter should be there but isn't.

Any other suggestions? I guess if the NIC was ohysically removed from the sytem, the the USB adapter probably would work but I don't want to do that now unless I know for certain the NIC is defective.

Len

[lybush]

Originally posted by lybush
Thanks for your reply.

The NIC is disabled in 'device manager' and even the bottom box is unchecked also. So, it shouldn't exist anyplace.

When I run winipcfg, nothing shows on screen one from the drop down box where the NIC used to be. There is only one entry there now, I think, it is PPP. The wireless USB adapter should be there but isn't.

Any other suggestions? I guess if the NIC was ohysically removed from the sytem, the the USB adapter probably would work but I don't want to do that now unless I know for certain the NIC is defective.

Len

I got this info. Maybe it will be useful:

1. Click on Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Network.
2. Select Internet Protocol TCP/IP for the Network Adapter under General tab and click on Properties.
3. Specify an IP address in the range of 192.168.0.x with the subnet mask as 255.255.255.0
4. Click on Gateway tab and add the address as 192.168.0.1
5. Click on DNS Configurations and Enable DNS and type the host name and assign the Preferred and Alternate DNS address as 192.168.0.1 and 4.2.2.2 under DNS Server Search Orderand click Ok and restart the computer.

Len LIne 5 has 'host name'. Not certain what that is.