T30 Wireless connectivity problems

[wes972397]

Hi there, I am having problems gaining wireless connectivity with a password protected 3com officeconnect adsl firewall router.

I have a T30 type 2366-85U with a cisco mini lan 802.11b wireless card.

The setup has been running perfectly on other networks with linksys bthomehub and netgear wireless switches and adsl routers (although the linksys and netgear were not password protected).

I have installed all the latest cisco drivers and the latest Thinkvantage program.

The T30 will detect the 3com network but when I come to enter the relavent network key only one entry box is available (no key comfirmation box) and when I do enter the key it appears viewable and not in asterix's like on other machines.

I press enter and an error appears, telling me that the key was not valid and it should be in ASCII code of different length.

I tried this several times and eventually the T30 stopped detecting the network altogether... (very disheartening) .


Can anyone offer me some advice?


Kind regards Wes

[wes972397]

Any takers?

[rkawakami]

Based upon the limited information and not knowing/having a Cisco card and wireless configuration program, I can only go by your last comment:

I press enter and an error appears, telling me that the key was not valid and it should be in ASCII code of different length.

If you do mean ASCII and not HEXADECIMAL, then my guess would be that your password configuration program is asking for a "passphrase" to be used to generate an appropriate "random" WEP/WPA encryption key. A "passphrase" is used by some wireless setups since it is easier to ask the user for some words, or a sentence, which is then used to generate the string of hexadecimal values used by the encryption system. I would hope that somewhere in the setup/install/configuration program for your laptop's wireless card there is a way to directly enter the 64 or 128 bit key and not a passphrase. I'm assuming that you also have the correct key for the 3com firewall/router and it consists of the numbers 0-9 and/or the letters A-F (i.e. hexadecimal).

[wes972397]

I have made an mess, the message came up with a hexadecimal and not an ASCII error.

Does this make a difference?

Wes

[rkawakami]

I have made an mess, the message came up with a hexadecimal and not an ASCII error. Does this make a difference?

Yes. If your error message indicates that the encryption key you entered does not contain enough characters, then you may not have correctly entered them. Encryption keys are usually 64 or 128 bits in length. However, I believe that what the user is actually expected to enter are 10 (40 bits) or 26 (104 bits) hexadecimal characters. Go to the wireless firewall/router setup and double check what the encryption key is. Note that hexadecimal characters are 0 (zero) through 9 and the letters A through F. Be sure you are typing in 10 or 26 characters. The fact that they are not 'masked' with asterisks when typed in does not mean anything.

(edit: I should have checked this first... I went to the 3com web site and found what I think you are referring to for the "3com officeconnect adsl firewall router". It appears to support the 256 bit WPA key length as well as the older 64/128 WEP keys. If the 3com router has been set to use 256 bit encryption, you may be out of luck if your Cisco 802.11b card does not support it. Also, if you are eventually able to connect to the wireless router and your Cisco card is the only 802.11b unit being used, it will slow everybody else down since the access point will operate at the 11b speed and not the 11g one.)

[wes972397]

Thanks for your help.

Does this mean I will have to get a new wireless card or am I totally boned?

Kind regards Wes