questions:

Usually cable stuff routes through the setop box, is this the case?

Does the "netgear" route LAN stuff for multiple machines?

As in my actual digital tv box? If so then no, they're totally seperate from one another the the digital box runs in the living room. The internet is in the loft, with the thick white cable that goes into the netgear modem coming through the wall in the loft.

Hrm not sure, I dont know the actual model name so I'll have to check later on when I'm at home and see what the net provides regarding that.

Well as for Wireless, on the netgears, which would be classed as base models for this trick... getting it through 1 floor is hard enough work.... through 3, more than likely impossible.

You'd need some Wireless bridges, that will piggyback the signal around the house. Basically, you need to see how good the signal is and work it out from there. Pre-empting it would be foolhardy.

As for Wireless Access Points, you need to establish the nature of the inital routing device, as you might beable to buy a generic WAP, and then beable to use it for other stuff as and when.

Ginge,

you will have to spoof the MAC addy in the router to appear as the same MAC address in the PC you registered with NTL (I'm assuming you're using NTL or Telewest). They (NTL) only allow one registered computer to be connected so you have to fool it by making your Router appear as that computer. This caused me no end of problems when I was configuring my wireless router (Netgear FWG114P) a couple of years back. Works a treat now though

I got all that excluding the last paragraph regarding Wireless Access Points you lost me there

What I got was netgear wireless router = basics, getting it to work across 3 floors is impossible. This is where a wireless bridge comes in, which take the signal to further regions. Which will hopefully sort out my googling around the house.

Err WAP's baffled me, I dunno where they get involved or why they're even there.

So when you see these adverts for complete wireless laptop use, googling the desert. I presume it's not with this structure, it'll be Wifi hotspots?!?

a WAP is a Wireless Access Point, which is like akin to a Wireless Hub... as opposed to a Wireless Router, which would do your Internet routing as well, which wouldn't be required as you have a netgear thing doing that already.

As for WiFi propaganda, yeah, its mostly hotspots that cost money, but not many allow you to WiFi 4000miles from a Starbucks.

The terminology is an absolute arse.

Tell us what the netgear is, then we can proceed, before its gets out of hand.

Agreeing with Jibs, get the Netgear, set it up, then see how strong the signal is around the house before buying a WAP/bridge.

Is there anything else wireless in the loft? If not, I'd look at using cables to whatever is there, and trying to move the netgear to the floor below. Might save you another wireless device.

*Edit* that Netgear looks fine to me too, nice a simple bit of kit to set up.

Get a proper router. You will invariably need to have more than one device connected simultaneously at some point in the future.

My neighbours have just fucked up and purchased an ADSL modem router. Shame they're broadband (NTL) isn't ADSL

I still want to do some proper cable runs and wall mounted access points in my house. One in the living room, one in the dining room and two upstairs should be sufficient.

I've been through a few netgear WAP. But I eat hardware for breakast 'cos I'm so l33t.

This is the modem I use:
http://broadband.motorola.com/consumers/products/sb4200/

The drivers that are used for this thing are Netgear ones hence why I thought it was a netgear device.

Although i think the firmware is a lil' bit more vital than the name on the box

Err so yeah, any help would be appreciated.

I'm thinking about skipping a step and at the weekend doing this properly and have a tidy up. So the desktop unit is gone, so all I'll need is to make sure that the modem / router and laptop can work without the desktop unit.

Cheers in advance!

I reckon, all you need is a WAP... That looks like an Ethernet Router... does the desktop connect to it via USB? Usually it'll just go... however as Madbury elluded to, it might be spoofing your MAC address to get online... however, it might have done all that automagically.

When you first used the cable internet, what device was first attached to it?

Nope, it's powered through its own plug and one cable goes to the nic card at the back of the computer, no fancy stuff here, then I think there's a third cable that goes from the phone line to the modem. Yeah that sounds correct

The setup hasn't changed from the day the telewest guys came 3 years ago. Same modem, same computer and the same phone line.

Hope that helps, I honestly thought doing all this would be really simple. Buy that router if its correct, plug it into the cable modem, install some sorta driver for something on the laptop and all done.

Everything is simple....

However....

Basically, Cable mostly works on "autentication" based on the MAC address of the first device you plug into the service. The MAC address being the magical part of TCP/IP that should not be spoken of. Anyways, the ploy is that by registering the MAC address to the service you have, you can only ever plug that device into that line as a bizarre and pointless ploy by the Cable companies to prevent people from running more than one machine off it. Which you are anyways and has been evidently sanctioned by Telewest.

Soooooo, what you can do is establish what the MAC address is of the router you currently have, and write it down, sometimes they are on written on the bottom of the device, or go into the web interface and note it down if you can... OR buy the new Wireless Router doofa plug it in and ring up Telewest and get them to reset the MAC address on the line... OR OR OR they don't do the MAC address thing and you can plug anything into it and it'll work...

The latter can be tested by plugging the ethernet from the wall into the laptop and seeing if the magi pixies dance their dance.

Simple. y'see.

Alternatively Telewest use PPPoE in that particular area, but based on that "Cable Modem" you linked, it ain't.

Ahh k, that all makes sense, so just to confirm that netgear wireless router that I've suggested to buy will be fine. I'll plug it in and ring up telewest to reset the MAC address, so I can use the laptop with the wireless router.

I genuinely can't stand hardware installation/repair work on computers, so the quickest route would be most ideal.

Btw I'm just gonna go with setting all this up without the use of my desktop machine, I'll box it up and put it away. So all this setting up will be for the use of using the laptop independantly of anything I've currently got setup.

One other stupid question, currently I've got the cable modem installed via drivers on my desktop. When I remove that set and plug the wireless router into the modem then the laptop pick up the wireless router. How will anything know the modem even exists?!? Or do I have to install drivers for both the wireless router and the cable modem onto my laptop?

I have no idea why you would need drivers at all, if its just connecting via ethernet, unless its some GUI to configure the "Cable Modem"... uninstall the drivers and see if everything works.

Unless you are confident in Telewests technical support the best option would be to first establish if you need to do any MAC address fiddlery by plugging you laptop into the ethernet from the wall... then get the MAC from the existing "Cable Modem" and spoof it.

However, if you think you can phrase your request with words of less than 1 grunt to Telewest, you should be rockin'.

You shouldn't need drivers for the cable modem if you're connecting via ehternet. All that bollocks they make you install when the man comes around with your box is just a load of shit to make life easier for noobs.

My setup is very simple

cable -- cable modem ---(ethernet cable)---- Netgear wireless router )))) PCI wifi card.

you originally telewest or ntl or cable and wireless, mads?

I don't know if their were different implimentations of cable about the country or if everyone replicated the, what I assume to be, American model.

I'm reasonably confident it's different depending on provider. I'm currently with NTL, but whether I'm NTL original or inherited infrastructure from another company (e.g. Cable and Wireless) I couldn't tell you.

As you say working out whether you have to do MAC spoofing is very simple, just plug another device in and see if it works (DHCP enabled natch). The point of the MAC address is it's unique to every single device manufactured. I believe it was originally used as a low level way of routing packets, it may still be used like that I don't know. Obvious advantage of MAC address over IP address is the uniqueness of it, so there's none of this bollocking around with Subnet masks et al.

TCP/IP is one of those defacto standards that's just sprung up, I'm sure if somebody was to 'design' the internet today the standard protocol would be quite different.

__

I need to lend you a book. (I'd have to write it first)

"just sprung up"

Thats frightening.

Anyways, its all magical pixies in the end.

And gerbils. lots of them. soon they will rise up against us.

The protocol would be JIB/IP and be totally awesome.

Alright, "just sprung up" is quite silly I know, I'm aware of the military origins of the Internet etc and I'm now going to talk out of my arse

My point is the original protocol was never designed to cope with this level of interconnectivity if it was they wouldn't have limited the number of IP addresses.

The thing is because TCP/IP became the standard for Wide area networks, it kicked down the door of all the 'little' comercial LAN protocols (e.g. XNS et al) and now we're here. Standardisation ofcourse is great .

slowly... removing... fingernails...

I'll stop talking about stuff I don't know about, you can relax

Do you want to hear my reasoning on how aeroplanes work?

On a more serious note if anyone can recommend a book then that would be great. It would need to be no more than one inch in thickness for me to come within 10 yards of it though. I refuse to believe pixies are involved in any way.

Back ON topic.

how do i get my mac address? i checked the modem and it doesn't say it and I ran wipipcfg and there's mac address section unless it goes by another name?

after googling i found that the "adaptor" address is what I'm looking for, but on the laptop it's running winxip and i can't find the name of winipcfg that i use on win98se on my desktop unit?

urgh, baffled! oh and how do i set it once i find it

erm

you need the MAC address of the WAN side of the "Cable Modem".

To get this you need access to the web interface on the "Cable Modem".

You might be able to use a cross over cable, connect the laptop into the WAN ethernet port, ping the interface and get the MAC from the arp cache.

You might need to fake the IP of the WAN side...

I dunno how it works.

You could always download the manual from the site, reset the "Cable Modem" to factory defaults and hope it doesn't lose the used MAC address in the process, then log in.

I wonder if telewest support would be able to help...

I put the ethernet cable into the laptop and for shits and giggles ran ie.exe and i got all that connect to the internet wizard stuff which is useless to me.

maybe they might be able to offer me some help by giving me some of this information that's hidden from me.

eek, something has just clicked if this is a pain in windows how the hell am i gonna get it going on ubuntu for the first time :jawdrop:

you can only learn by making mistakes, in my case, alot of them.

You can't make omlettes without treading on mice.

The wind only works if you think sideways.

Treacle is just another form of destiny.

Together is the history of tomorrow.

Windows isn't the issue, its that you let someone else set your gear up.

Get the manual for the "Cable Modem" and sort it out that way.

However, if you did it my way, you wouldn't need to do anything other than buy and configure a WAP.

That makes me superior to you in every conceivable way. (except spelling)

Which is? Oh great one (self-proclaimed)

Finally the respect I obviously diserve!

If you want to stay on the Netgear Train:

http://www.netgear.co.uk/wireless_access_points_WG602.php

I have one of those (two but one died and the first one coughs).

I hear the new one actually work for more than a week!

Right ok so this replaces the wireless router.

so what i do is cable modem > wap > laptop (picks up the signal) and its google ready?

indeed.

now, you have a whole world of Wireless security to fret about.

A whole wide wonderous world.

If you want the DS to work directly with it, you have to do 128 bit WEP... with MAC filtering.

YAWN!

I just spoke to a telewest guy, and he said that I dont need to do a MAC spoof cos they dont register *blank* I forogt what they don't register. So i'll just buy that WAP you've suggested and away we go

its all about the details man, the DETAILS.

You're not going to make the A-TEAM with that slap dash attitude. What would BA say?

I'll pick this up sat afternoon if I'm not playing football.

I just bought the WAP you suggested from scan.co.uk

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=324972

So I'll have to wait a couple of days to actually finish this off. Cheers for all the help I appreciate it!

Jib you let me down mate, I bought that WG602 WAP, and the 2nd sentence on the set up goes against everything I wanted.

It says:
"b. Prepare a PC with an Ethernet adaptor...."

What I wanted was to pack away the PC and throw it in a cupboard somewhere never to return again. But it seems on first inspection that this cannot be used without a PC. I wanted something that ran on its own, without any connection to a PC.

Err?

Your laptop doesn't have ethernet?

You configure it once, then thats it.

Infact the "Cable Modem" should issue a DHCP address to the WAP, and the default were as such that the WAP is open for you do configure from the Moon, if your signal is good enough.

Without wanting Papercut to lose any more fingernails. Jibs comments make sense. It's a WAP not an Ethernet bridge you have.

Has an ethernet port yeap:
1 x network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX - RJ-45

So what I go against what it suggests in the manual for installing the WAP. Literally plug the ethernet into the WAP and pick up the signal. I can't obviously keep the ethernet cable in my laptop cos I can't walk around and google if that occurrs.

Dude just plug in the ethernet cable between WAP and Laptop, then stick in the IP addy into firefox it gives you in the docs (probably 192.168.x.y). This will get you into the configuration screens. You might have to type in the default username and password (again check the manual). Configure WAP, disconnect ethernet, job done.

That's my beef in my head the laptop will be completely wireless if there's a cable running to it then I can't do walkies with the laptop. Or am I being really slow.

DUDE!

You only need the cable to configure it initially. After that it's completely wireless.

For example I had to configure my router by plugging my PC into it (which meant dragging all my PC kit down into the hall where my modem and router sit. AFTER configuration you don't need the wires anymore.

I'm officially washing my hands of this.

Sometimes, you have to run with the baton yourself.

You need to find your own path.

Jib n' co. I know you said you were washing your hands with this one, but hopefully I can ignite some empathy within you as you've had troubles with these WAP's.

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to get this thing to work and I made a boo-boo somewhere and cocked it up completely.

I did what you and Mads said.

1) Disconnect the Ethernet cable from my machine,
2) Plug it into the WAP,
3) Set-up the TCP/IP stuff to what the manual says,
4) #General comment# Do the web panel gizmo,

All sound advice and taking what you guys said on board and reading the sparse paper manual.

I turned the power onto the WAP, bingo the laptop picked up the signal instantly, but I couldn't connect to anything due to the TCP/IP settings being incorrect. So I check the properties and matched the settings in the manual to the laptop. Mads even knew the correct A.B class IP ranges (you clever soul). Laptop fired back another great message it could connect to "NETGEAR" (the default name), I had a massive grin on my face about now.

Next set was to do the web panel gizmo, I checked the paper based manual and it said check the IP and Wireless settings. I couldn't see anything alarmingly wrong on initial inspection so I made a new window and tried to view google.com. But nothing, so I went back to the web panel on the IP settings I noticed that the IP addi was ever so slightly wrong to what the initial IP addi should be when setting up the TCP/IP. The actual addi which was in there was the one for the web panel, so I changed it to the first one so everything matched.

Press apply and expected a nifty redirect page, it hanged and then I got an error message saying it couldn't connect. So I was well confused as I couldn't connect to the websites nor could I connect to web panel, but I was still connected to the "NETGEAR" network.

I read the trouble shooting PDF part and it's given me 5 options. Basic one unplug it and see what happens (nothing). Restart the browser and try again (nothing). Check the IP addi in TCP/IP and the WAP, problem being I know where the TCP/IP one but I don’t know where to check the actual WAP. Plus everyone I do check kind of says the same thing since I think I manually edited it when in the web panel, so I'm not sure which ones which .

Then I'm left with another option which is a hard reset on the back of the WAP, which I presume is the empty looking hole and it's like manually ejecting a CD-Drive get a pin or whatever and press the button.

I was wondering if there was another way before doing the manual reset just in case you've come across this problem or my school boy error.

Cheers in advance! (I was sooo close (I think)).

My gut is telling me this is where you went wrong. I'd be tempted to hard reset back to factory defaults and try again. The fact that you managed to connect to it wirelessly and gain access to the web panel is good news.

Not being familiar with WAPs, what sits between the WAP and the Broadband feed coming into your house? Is there a separate DSL/ADSL modem/Router?

If the web panel is anything like the one on my router then pay close attention to the text in the righthand pane as it explains reasonably well what each and every setting does.

--EDIT-- Maybe we should continue this over PM to avoid any more fingernail loss

Yeah half of the battle has been won!

I've finally got the laptop to work with the ethernet cable directly inserted into it.

I had to ring up telewest, and they said they were doing work in my area hence why my cable modems lights are flashing crazy right now. Then they "flashed" my connection, and then I had to reset my modem to dynamically give it a new IP addi. Plus they disabled some MS Firewall which I didn't even know existed.

How on Earth any normal person is expected to know this stuff I dont know I'm a web developer by trade and can't get this stuff to work first time. God know's what it's like having a 50 yr old down the phone with no computer experience!

Right I'm gonna crack on and see if I can now get this WAP to work!

Right I just got off the phone with the amazing Indian call centre to find out that I can't get this WAP to work with my Surfboard modem cos I need a wireless router

More dough I gotta spend

so you tried spoofing your router's MAC address on your laptop before buying anything right?

I'm shocked the WAP can't 'talk' to the modem. Personally though I'd have gone for the wireless router solution from the off. They're so cheap these days anyway.

I'm really sorry about resurrecting this thread but I'm lost again.

I bought the Netgear WGT624 Wireless Router this morning and have just configured it, but I can't get it to wirelessly work, which is baffling me.

The way the PDF Manual suggests to set this stuff is like so:

1) Turn all the stuff off cable modem/laptop etc…,
2) Take the ethernet cable out from my laptop, and plug it into the wireless router, so from one end it's plugged into the cable modem the other is into the wireless router,
3) Then I take this blue cable which came in the box, and plug it into one of the Lan sockets in the router and the other end goes into the laptop,
4) Turn the stuff back on and check that the lights are flashing and if so run the automatic setup bit,
5) I've ran the automatic setup and first time around I pretty much let it do it's thing, the only things I changed were passwords and erm enable WEP,
6) Said it all installed correctly and it did, I'm using the Internet fine now running through the wireless router, but I'm wired

Here's my problem, reading the manual the next set to get it to go wireless was to go to the wireless network connection's in the system tray, but mine's empty now that I've setup all this stuff. Before I could see all my neighbours connections but now the list is empty.

(see pic)
http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitledbo8.gif

Do I now have to manually create a new network (somehow) via the network tasks section that's on the screen I sent. Or is that I've still got this blue cable linked from the laptop and the wireless router? I'm a bit scared to remove the blue cable right now, as everything is semi working, and the last time I started getting ahead of myself I destroyed the web panel for the WAP, the last time I tried setting this up.

Oh three more things, I've disabled WEP but I still can't see anything, and the Internet and Wireless lights on the router are flashing. Plus I haven't even touched this Wireless adaptor that's in the box I'm not sure what it does, but it looks like a USB keyring thingy. I think that's like an after thought though, which isn't this problem?

Cheers for anything/advice and sorry for dragging this thread out but I've really got no one to ask in person.
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