[hecateh]

Hey guys and girls, just installed some wireless gear i had spare into my G5 pm and my sony vaio laptop, they are belkin 54g cards, my problem is that i can get it all working fine with NO security, when i enable security in os x the windows machine will not connect at all, i have tried using 40 and 128 bit WEP passwords and the HEX/DECIMAL thing i found in other threads to the best of my knowledge this doesnt work, can anyone give step by step instructions on how to do this?

the pc is using windows xp home ( )

like i said its all working with no security! someone help before someone nasty finds out!

thanks!

[turtle777]

Ok, your post is confusing.

Are you telling us you put a belkin 54g card in your PM5 ?
Do you have the correct drivers ?
Are you connecting through a wireless router, or directly ?

-t

[hecateh]

there is a belkin 54g card in the g5, its automatically installed and works fine (apart from the security part...)

i am trying to connect just between the pc and the pm

hope that clears it up a little

cheers.

[ghporter]

As Turtle said, your original post is confusing. Sentences are our freind.

Anyway, security on a computer-to-computer network is a dicey proposition. There are a lot of factors to deal with in wireless security, and they are always a little harder to manage when you don't have a "known good" system, such as a router or base station, to compare things to.

It sounds like your Windows machine is giving you problems here. First and foremost, make sure you are entering exactly the same key in both machines. Apple likes text keys, but everybody else in the WiFi world likes hexadecimal keys. I suggest you generate a hex key for compatibility. (This is the #1 "oops" Mac users run into when setting up wireless security with non-Apple equipment.)

If that doesn't work, there's another possibility. Windows XP gives you a built in way to manage wireless connections, but you may also get some sort of application with the hardware that does the same thing. Try to do anything while someone else is trying to do exactly the same thing...it gets confusing at best. If making ABSOLUTELY AND TOTALLY SURE, BEYOND ANY DOUBT that you've entered EXACTLY THE SAME KEY (that's a real big hint to use a hex key!), and it still doesn't work, check back here and I'll see if I can walk you through deconflicting the Windows machine.

[hecateh]

thanks for the tips so far and apologies for the first post, i have been trying to get this working for quite a few hours!

just to make sure im not going crazy i installed the pci card into another pc and tried using different security settings and different length keys etc.

everything i tried worked just fine, works ok with and without security.

this leads back to my problem, i have been trying various ideas already posted on the forum on this subject and have tried using hex keys (using WEP key maker) making sure and repeatedly entering the same keys on both machines to no avail. using the $ before the hex key in osx also.

if at all possible could anyone tell me some example hex keys to try incase im doing something completely stupid! I cant see anything im doing wrong right now and its driving me mad!

thanks for any advice!

[ghporter]

An easy to use, though probably not very effective, hex key is simple to make. Just enter zeros until it won't take any more. Zeros are hex digits, so they will work, but they probably aren't very secure.

If things work with all zeros, then the overall system works, and it's just a matter of making sure everything is entered identically. I make up a text file that contains my key and copy it onto all the computers that need it, so I can just copy and paste the key without having to worry about how stupid my fingers are when they meet Mr. Keyboard.

[hecateh]

finally! thanks for the help guys, but it turned out i needed to tick the "network authentication (shared mode)" box, ticked it and it connected straight away with security enabled. d'oh

thanks again for everyones help!

[ghporter]

Huzza! And a "Doh!" for my not mentioning authentication. It's something that trips everyone now and then. Basically, this is one of "those settings that have to be exactly the same," but it has enough-often really confusing-options, that it deserves its own mention.

Anyway, success is its own reward (isn't that an American Express ad?).