DI-614+ Wireless Major WEP Problems

[coleman01]

I know that the following is long but please try to read it all. You will be helping A LOT of people if you can offer any help. Thank you.

Hi,

I currently am trying to setup 3 wireless devices on a school network for children to use. We are having great difficulties. The scenario is...

Building 1:
1x DI-614+ RevA - SSID: netRE, Channel 6
1x DI-614+ RevB - SSID: netMATHS, Channel 11

Building 2:
1x DI-614+ RevA - SSID: netMATHS, Channel 1

Each router plugs into an access point to grant access to the education network. Every machine runs Windows 2000 and MSI Wireless Utility (simply to configure the wireless connections).

The basic router settings are (at this stage) are the default and have worked fine.

We had problems with wireless laptops being able to connect to the devices. This was resolved when we changed the devices to each have separate SSID's. On each machine we then manually add the specific device to the preferred network list. E.g. Maths laptops have netMATHS added to its preferred network lists. Some laptops had a couple of devices added - for those people who roam between buildings. This worked without problem.

Since this, we decided to implement WEP encryption - 128 bit. We used a specific key generator to create the HEX key. The SAME key was then placed on all 3 devices with the following settings:

WEP: enabled
WEP Encryption: 128Bit - Open Source
Key Type: HEX
Key 1: 666f72756d6b657974656d7073

The key was then placed in the configuration of each machine using the MSI Wireless Utility. The device was selected and the following options set (on each laptop)

WEP Encryption: enabled
Key provided to me: unticked
Key: as Key1 (666f72756d6b657974656d7073)
Key (advanced): 1

This then stopped the machines from working completely in terms of connecting to the wireless network. They just wouldn’t do it. On some occasions I could logon locally (with local admin access) and see that the machine could see the connection. It would also sometimes allow access to network drives. However 9 times out of ten this wasn’t the case. When checking the connecting settings, they were set up correctly on the machine.

When standard users (pupils / staff) try to logon to the machine, then it just doesn’t logon. It says the domain isn’t available - which is expected if it does not find / connect to the wireless device.

When trying to connect to the devices through via a hardwired network connection it just wouldn’t connect to its web interface either. They key has been checked and rechecked and checked again and it is correct.

Does anyone have any ideas on why WEP is causing so many wierd problems. Are we setting up WEP correctly?

I would really appreciate any help or support you can provide on this matter. It would help a lot of children and their education as well.

Thank you.
Chris Coleman