Jeff Duntemanns Drive-By Wi-Fi Guide

If Things Don't Work…

The first time you install and configure a client adapter, it may not automatically connect to your access point or gateway. The easy way to connect is to bring up XP's site survey (or the client utility's site survey under other Windows versions) and choose a wireless network to connect to. This works most of the time. If it doesn't, here are some things to try:

• If you don't see your network SSID in a site survey window, check to be sure you haven't turned off the SSID beacon broadcast at the access point or gateway. If the beacon is on but you don't see the network, you're either in a dead spot or outside the useful boundaries of your access point or gateway's microwave field. Audit the field (as explained earlier) to see if you can mount an external antenna a little to one side or another and possibly finesse the dead spot.

• Windows XP has an option called 'Repair This Connection,' which you'll find in the Network Tasks pane of the Network Connections window when you select a particular network connection. When you click Repair Connection, XP probes the connection, refreshes some settings, and does whatever it can to make the connection work. I found this makes connections work most of the time, and if you're using XP it should be your first troubleshooting step.

• If you're running Windows 98, try running the Internet Connection Wizard. Windows may have some settings in place from a dialup connection or an earlier lack of any networking connection. Make sure you answer that you're connecting through a LAN when the wizard asks, and tell it to discover the proxy server automatically. (Most of the rest of the wizard is an attempt by Microsoft to sell Internet accounts.) This should definitely be your first troubleshooting step under Windows 98.

• Power down and reboot the balky computer and try again. This is a good way to request new IP address information from your local router's DHCP server, which can solve certain disconnects between a client machine and your router. (These can happen if you're configuring your router or gateway.)

• Make sure you do not have two DHCP servers operating at once. Many Wi-Fi access points contain DHCP servers, and although they almost always default to being disabled, if they become enabled somehow (typically by mistake-you meant to click something else!) computers on your network can get very confused.

• Make sure everything is completely plugged in (especially PCMCIA cards), is getting power, has its antennas securely attached, and so on.

• As a last resort, consider reinstalling the operating system on the computer that won't connect. I was forced to do this for Windows 2000 once, after it simply would not propagate the machine hostname across the network. Something in Windows had become corrupt, and reinstalling Windows put it right.

One thing you need to keep in mind as you assemble, configure, and troubleshoot networks: It takes time for certain things to happen. An access point doesn't necessarily receive an IP address from the local DHCP server the absolute bleeding instant you plug it into your network. Give it a minute before you panic and assume something is wrong. Setting a static IP address may require as much as 30 seconds on slower machines to 'take.' Don't despair and reboot too soon.

I hate to say it, but networking can be a pretty freaky thing. If you spend enough time fooling with networks, and mix enough technologies, things will happen that defy easy analysis and troubleshooting. This is why you must keep on studying, and learn networking as deeply as you can find the time and intestinal fortitude to do. Even the experts encounter problems that they never entirely understand. Sometimes swapping out a component (router, switch, access point) will fix things, even if the swapped-out component tests good in all testable ways.

95% of networking problems respond well to calm thought, analysis, cold systematic testing, and reliance on good notes. The other 5% will make you nuts. Be ready.