Can't log on to any wireless network

[BobMachus]

I got an Emachines 6809 laptop yesterday , and eagerly started to setup my Dell 2300 Truemobile router as an access point . I have an existing wired network on a Linksys BEFSR81 8-port switch. I followed the instructions on setting the Dell up as an access point, but now cannot access the router at all. My laptop says it is connected with excellent signal strength, but I cannot get into the configuration utility at all. I have used the reset button, and unplugged the router, reset again, unplugged again etc, but cannot acces the router via wireless or wire.

I then installed netstumbler and drove around town detecting lots and lots of wireless networks, but my little icons in the notification area kept saying no wireless networks available. I went to Starbucks and other known hotspots and netstumbler detected these networks (so I am assuming the wireless card in the laptop is ok), but I couldn't connect to them. I feel really stupid as I am unable to get my laptop onto any wireless networks. Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions.

Bob

[Greenstead]

That sounds like two different problems.

If you reset the router it will return to its factory defaults with default LAN address (whatever the manual says e.g. 192.168.0.1)

If you plug a wired PC into the router LAN port you can access the router web page with IE on http:\\192.168.0.1 (or whatever its address is). But the PC has to be on the same subnet so you may have to first manually set the PC NIC address to say IP 192.168.0.200 mask 255.255.255.0

The reason the laptop does not connect with windows can be a number of reasons.
Netsumbler is a sniffer which decodes the data in the broadcast packets that it detects and it will tell you if the source is an access point, its SSID, its mac address, its channel and if it is encrypted or open. Any source which is open can be connected to by windows.
Windows uses the wireless driver which depends on the settings in the wireless connection configuration (network connections ->wireless connection...right click and select properties). Go throuh the wireless settings and set it to connect to any access point, non-preferred SSIDs, uncheck IEEE authentication, no encryption.

Try that.

[BobMachus]

Thanks! My laptop's ip address was from the gateway. I unplugged the access point from the gateway and was able to log right on to the access point.