View Single Post
Old 10-11-2006, 07:14 AM   #522
Flash Walken
Lifetime Suspension
 
Flash Walken's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: The Void between Darkness and Light
Exp:
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by icarus View Post
Question:

I have moved into a new place and am trying to get onto the wireless network here. My housemate is the only one using it and had it set up by a family member in IT who seemingly made it more complicated (secure?) than it needed to be.

Initially it wouldn't even ask me for a password when I tried to log on, but I seem to have fixed that. The problem I have is when I try to enter the password I get an error message saying something like "40-bit or 128-bit encryption requires key to be 5 or 13 ASCII characters or 10 or 26 hexadecimal characters long".

I don't think I have ever used a network key that was 5 or 13 characters long and it has always worked just fine. And the password my housemate is using is 8 characters long (on her computer it is shown as "oooooooo"--you know, the little black dots so that no one can read your password? there are eight of them).

So why is it telling me to use 5 or 13 characters for the WEP key when it is actually 8?
I had a hell of a time with that bull**** when I was setting up the wireless network here for 4 people. Check and make sure it's actually WEP, it might not be, but your stupid windows might not give you an option for anything else.

You have a laptop, so I'm going to suggest you disable the 'Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings' (wireless network connection > Properties > Wireless Networks) and use the software for your wireless card.

I can't really explain it better than that, because I don't know what I'm doing, but that's what seemed to work here.
Flash Walken is offline