wireless router advice

[Lewis Ehrhardt]

Boughtt a dlink wireless n300 dir615 to use as my wireless router.
I have two diffrent computers I want to connect to internet. My computer with Windows 7 has no problem connecting to router. My laptop with Vista will not connect to the wireless router unless I have no security marked for the router.
Any ideas? Don't want to run my wireless w/o security. Thanks Lewis

[Curt Harms]

Do not run without security enabled unless you're the only house within a half mile, preferably WPA2 if all your hardware supports it. WEP is better than nothing but not by much. I'm not familiar with Vista so can't help much there. My only thought would be to use a manufacturer's utility on the Vista machine rather than the Microsoft wireless utility if that is an option.

[Chuck Wintle]

i am quessing that password is setup correctly and that this password was used on the vista machine? Besides that try googling the problem.

[Lewis Ehrhardt]

Running it w/o security was the tech's solution. Said let it run for about an hour and then, put your security back. I'm wondering if I need to get another router model?

[Chuck Wintle]

Running it w/o security was the tech's solution. Said let it run for about an hour and then, put your security back. I'm wondering if I need to get another router model?
i have the same model and it works quite well for me. What happened when the security was put back? Can you login to the router to set the password? is it wpa-2 personal or wep or WPA2 PSK(pre-shared key). Also is the firmware up to date? there is a way to check on this model.

[Greg Peterson]

Lewis - Does your Vista machine 'see' the router?

If so, are you entering the correct pass phrase (password)?

Are the factory default settings still in place on your router?

[Steve Baumgartner]

I had endless problems with Vista wireless networking. They went away when I upgraded the machine to Windows 7 on the same machine.

With no predictable pattern, Vista would sometimes connect and sometimes fail. When it failed, it would tell me that I had entered a bad password and prompt me to retype it, which was weird since the same password had worked fine on the previous connection. After a lot of hair pulling and diving deeper into the error logs than I wanted, I found that Vista was timing out waiting for certain responses during the initial security dialog with the router. It interpreted any error during this dialog to mean the password was bad, even if that was not the case! I finally concluded that the router was sensing congestion on the default channel 6 and switching to another channel as soon as it was contacted by the laptop. Vista failed to follow the channel switch and hence missed the security responses, timed out, and told me my password was bad. Changing the router to use only channel 6 mostly fixed the problem, though I still had occasional unexplained dropped connections that were very frustrating. Bottom line: Vista was a train-wreck full of bugs that Microsoft should have patched.

[paul cottingham]

Patch it by installing windows 7 (or ....wait for it..... Linux :-) couldn't resist.)

[Chuck Wintle]

Patch it by installing windows 7 (or ....wait for it..... Linux :-) couldn't resist.)

vista was a pack of trouble from the get go and windows 7 is essentially the result. What surprises me most is that a patch is not forthcoming to fix the problems. By the way are you up to date with the service packs?

[Lewis Ehrhardt]

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Up to date on all updates and such.
The computer w/Vista works fine when the security is off the router
Two other computers, one with XP, the other with Win7 works fine, just this one with Vista.
Like some of you said, might be the Vista, b/c we've had nothing but problems with this computer since we bought it
We bought our grandson an Acer for Christmas, he's had no problems with his, got it dirt cheap
Might be cheaper to go and buy another laptop than upgrading to Win7
So much for MS
And NO comments from the MAC audience! [smiles] just can't afford to run in your circles right now

[Jerome Stanek]

Does the Vista machine support the same security as what you are trying to use.

[Myk Rian]

Passwords on the router are case sensitive.
Vista is a big problem, as was Windows ME.

[Lewis Ehrhardt]

Jerome, I don't know, don't know how to check either, l

[Curt Harms]

I have a couple thoughts if you want to mess with them. One has to do with security settings on the router. Some have as an option WPA and WPA2. This has caused some people grief in the Linux world. Try using just WPA 2 if all your wireless devices are pretty new and support WPA2. The other possiblity would be to try a different network adapter. Getting an adapter that uses a different chipset might help. I have no idea if certain adapters (chipsets) work better with Vista or not. Some devices have trouble when hardware encryption is enabled. Disabling hardware encryption and using software encryption fixes the problem. I have no idea how to do that in Windows.