[AdvocateUK]

Here's the setup.....

Downstairs is a Mac G5 with an airport extreme card connecting to a Linksys WRT54G wireless router.

Upstairs is a PC with a Linksys 54G wireless network card, also connecting to the Linksys router.

Both computers can access the internet.

Both computers can ping each other (with, overall, good ping times).

Now then, if I host a game of Jedi Knight II or Jedi Academy on the PC the Mac game cannot see it when doing a scan/refresh of Local servers. When I host a game on the Mac the PC can pick the server up (with a ping of 1 yippee!) but when I join the Mac server (from the pc) I just get the connection interrupted message and cannot play.

Please help! I've invested quite a bit of money trying to get this wireless network running (AE card, wireless card for PC, and now the router in an attempt to cure this problem, not to mention two copies of each game grrr) and am still having the same problem.

TIA

Alistair

[AdvocateUK]

With the help of a couple of friends I found the solution, so just in case anyone else is having problems here it is.

The root of the problem lay with the WindowsXP machine with the WMP54G card (didn't you just know it)

The solution was to disable the Wireless Zero Configuration Service and install Linksys' own wireless utility. Now the problem with that was that the setup for said utility crashed everytime I tried to run it. Sooooo, I had to run the setup in Windows 2000 compatibility mode for it to install. One reboot later and my problems were over.

The moral of the story? Steer clear of Linksys wireless cards for WindowsXP.

[ghporter]

I wouldn't go as far as you said about Linksys wireless cards in general. I have two different WPC11 models that I use in XP laptops, and they're just fine. I think the problem is the firmware in the WMP54G. I've seen a lot of posts in Broadband Reports' Linksys Forum about weirdness with that particular card, including it being susceptible to interference from being installed next to a video card!

At least you figured things out and got it all working. The kicker is that the XP Zero Configuration feature should work regardless, and worse, the XP proprietary configuration software should NEVER crash! That's two real problems. The first has to have something to do with the card, and the second must be related to Linksys' software people. Did you download the proprietary software, or just depend on the disc that came with the card? I always download the latest version of that sort of thing, just in case they found and fixed a bug while the product was sitting on the store shelf.