Please help with intermittent sinc problem when WEP is ON

[Esrog]

:) Thanks for this great forum to all who maintain it !

Problem: trying to connect with Sony VAIO 505 laptop (Win XP Pro) into Apple Airport Based home network. Works great when WEP is disabled. With WEP 40 or WEP 128 turned on it would not sinc.

Initially the laptop worked well with 128 bit encryption but only during the first evening. Next morning I have taken it to my office and connected into USRobotics USR8045 wireless router network with 128 bit WEP encryption, everything worked well.

Subsequently when trying to connect to the home Airport network the laptop would not sinc. I have re-set and double-checked encryption keys several times on both the Airport and the laptop (for both 40 bit encryption with 5 letter key and 128 bit encryption with 13 letter key).

Any ideas on what can be checked and verified are greatly appreciated. Thanks.:confused:

[Greenstead]

I guess there are two possibilities:
1. What did you change on the laptop to make it connect at work?
2. What did the work network change on the laptop?

Only you can answer 1.

If go to command prompt and do an
>Ipconfig /all
and post it here there might be a clue there.

Will the laptop connect anymore if you wire it into the home network ?

[Esrog]

Thanks for your reply. Here are my answers:

1. What did you change on the laptop to make it connect at work? >>The ports were bridged (Ethernet hardwire, Wireless card, and the 400Mb port)

2. What did the work network change on the laptop? >> I do not know how to trace this

Will the laptop connect anymore if you wire it into the home network ? >> Yes, it connects well via hard-wire Ethernet. It also works fine via wireless connection while the WEP is disabled.

I have unbridged the ports which did not help.
I have manipulated the IP address automatic aquisition feature and the IP address was aquired - did not help either.
I have verified again that the Laptop worked well in the office network using 40 bit encryption.

Very frastrating
__________________
:(

[Dan]

hi

Not sure if this is relevant, but it foxed me for a short while. My Wifi G router accepts a passphrase to generate the WEP key, whereas XP requires the key itself, rather than the phrase.... I know it's obvious, but might be worth checking....

Cheers

Dan

[Greenstead]

That is a good point Dan makes. And since your connection works without WEP then it seems a likely solution.

[Esrog]

Thanks Greenstead and Dan for helping. Here is the solution:

Under Windows XP network settings in the Wireless Networks tab, there is a button to configure a given network connection. Clicking that button, it defaults to a tab titled Association. In that window, there is a field called Network Authentication, and upon changing it from "Open" to "Shared", everything now works. *Sigh* Such a seemingly obvious solution... too bad it took forever to experiment with it. :p

Thanks again!