I have an old PC with windows 98. It has a wireless adapter. I have 6 different Dells, 4 of them laptops (all the others have XP).

I recently upgraded my DSL to a faster speed, and today I got a new modem. It is a wireless modem, so it is modem and router in one. i got all the computers to connect to it except for this old one. It is driving me batty trying to figure out why it's not working. The old setup had a westell modem and a linksys router. This new one is an AT&T 2Wire.

As you may know, windows 98 does not have built in Windows Wireless Network configuration the way the newer ones do. I have the software that came with the linksys adapter, but it doesn't seem to be helping me connect. I don't know if I didn't configure it right or not. The old router was not encrypted, so it was easy to connect to it (we don't have close neighbors and it was a really weak signal, you had to be in the house to connect to it). The new one has an encryption key.

I tried calling Linksys, but since the adapter is really old, they won't help me without charging me. I will probably try AT&T again on Monday. They're closed now. I don't know if they will be able to help me or not because their support is spotty and unpredictable in quality.

The adapter is a Wireless-B PCI Adapter, model number WMP11, and the software is called WLAN Monitor VER. 2.0. I did look on Linksys' network but couldn't find anything that helped me. I SET up a site profile in the software, but I don't know if I did it right. When I try to connect, it either doesn't work at all (says disconnected) or it says connected, but then it doesn't work (nothing works in the browser). But the signal from the modem is fine.

When setting it up, it asks me if I want 64 bit or 128 bit encryption. I have no idea what that means. I tried both choices, and neither worked anyway.

With the other pc's, I just went to the router's IP address that they gave me, in the browser, and it has a place where you can login with your AT&T account and type in the encryption key. It doesn't work with this one, though. Maybe because it's WIN98? I dunno.

Well, if anyone has any helpful suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks

Suzanne
Can you tell us what hardware version the wireless adapter in the Win98 machine is? It should be either 4.0 or 2.7.The Linksys WMP11 uses the 802.11b wireless mode for communication. While a perfectly good standard, it is old and slow. When you configure a wireless network, you setup which standards the wireless access point will work with. Normally you restrict this just to the ones you need. The less the better.

My guess is, the wireless access point was not setup to accept 802.11b. What wireless modes do the wireless adaptors in the other computers support (802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n)?

For that matter, what wireless modes does the AT&T 2-wire support and which ones was it configured to accept? (I'm having trouble locating the documentation for this component.)Which 2Wire product do you have (model name/number)? You need the user guide documentation to setup and maintain its configuration. This is a sample user guide.

Also see:
Wireless Quick Reference
2Wire.com: Support - Search
Support - Downloads

The communication parameters for your wireless network are established at the wireless access point when you setup its configuration. From the sample user guide the major parameters are:
o Channel Number (radio frequency band - 1 through 11)
o SERVICE Set Identifier (SSID), aka "Network Name"
o Authentication Method (WEP-Open, WEP-Shared, WPA-PSK, other?)
o Encryption Key
o Wireless Mode (802.11b/g, 802.11b-only, 802.11g-only, other?)

All wireless network adaptors must match (be configured automatically or manually to) the communication parameters established at the wireless access point.

You never explicitly said how many of your computers are successfully using wireless and what mode they're using (802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n).