WEP is NFG!

1. If you're using WEP 64bit, then make sure your ASCII text string is exactly 5 characters long.
2. If you're using WEP 128bit, then make sure your ASCII text string is exactly 13 characters long.
3. If you can't get either WEP64 or WEP128 to work with ASCII text strings, set the WEP key in Hexadecimal. 64bit is exactly 10 characters long. 128bit is exactly 26 characters long. Hex always works, even when ASCII fails.

What's a T41 laptop? Who made it? What wireless card are you using? What version of the driver? What operating system? What makes you thing it won't do WEP? Unless it's a really ancient 802.11 (1 or

2mbits/sec only), all the modern cards and drivers will do WEP. Even the ancient cards have firmware upgrades that support WEP.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your response! I'll try out your suggestions tonight and hopefully get this connection working.

- The T41 is an IBM Thinkpad Laptop

- My wireless card is an Intel Wireless PRO 2100 3B (802.11b)

- I'm using the latest driver from the IBM Thinkpad site

- The laptop is running Windows 2000

- The firmware for my Linksys WRT54GS router is the most recent

If I can't get WEP working tonight, I'll try using WPA instead.

Thanks again for your advice!

...Lew..

This it totally false. It does not matter how many characters.

Really? Some firmware versions do not seem to check how many characters is typed into the WEP key. Instead, it just truncates the string to 5 or 13 ASCII characters and doesn't bother telling you about it. There also seem to be different ways some manufactories convert from ASCII to Hex. Yes, it does matter.

Just yesterday, I had to connect a G3 laptop running 10.3 with a stock Airport card to my office DI-614+ wireless router. I use 64 bit WEP because I have a pile of Orinoco Silver cards that will only do 64 bit. I type in the WEP key in ASCII and it wouldn't take it. I do the same in Hex, and it works. With Hex, it ALWAYS works. With ASCII, it's often a challenge.

Well, WPA is more secure that WEP and should be used if available.

IBM had some wireless drivers updates for W2K and XP. Some of my customers are running it on A31 laptops and W2K. I know it supports WEP, but I'm not sure about WPA. I'll check (if I have time).

Say huh?

From every access point I own, the instructions are similar to this one (which I copied / pasted from the setup page)

For 64 bit keys you must enter 10 hex digits into the key box. For 128 bit keys you must enter 26 hex digits into the key box.

Taking a moment's reflection, Beretta mused: | | Say huh?

Notice his instructions specify ACSII while yours specify Hex ...

Ahh. True. My bad.

However, I notice the orig>Wireless Router: Linksys WRT54GS

Since that is two diff manufacturers, I believe the generally accepted practice is to use the Hex characters, since different manufacturers use different methods of converting the ASCII to Hex, as Jeff mentioned further up in this thread.

Figured out the problem. Thought I'd post an update here 'cause I'm probably going to google this at some time in the future!

I needed to install "IBM Access Connections" software that enabled me to correctly configure the laptop for WEP wireless. Configuring WEP directly via Windows 2000 does not work (at least on a T41 laptop).

The URL (at the time of this writing) for this software is here:

Thanks agian to everyone for their responses!