Netgear DG824m help please.

Beware of such friends. They should have installed XP SP2 and subsequent updates. 64 bit encryption is marginal at best. The prefered encryption level is WPA-PSK (pre-shared key) which one of the post XP SP2 updates would have installed on your machine. Unfortunately, the DG824M router does not support WPA-PSK so you'll have to live with either WEP 64 or WEP 128.

This might help:

Connect to the Netgear DG824M router with: http://192.168.0.1 I think it's on the "Basic Settings" page (not sure). It will show an ASCII text string of exactly 5 characters and a hexadecimal string of exactly 10 characters. Write BOTH of them down. That's your WEP key.

If you can't extract the existing WEP key, then change it to a new one. If so, select HEX and not ASCII, as Hex always works, while ASCII sometimes does not because of differences between different manufacturers ideas of how to convert ASCII to Hex. If you do this, you'll also need to change the WEP key in the old computer.

When your new computah requests an encryption key, set it to 64 bit ASCII and give it the 5 character ASCII key. If it's Windoze XP, the

I suggest you contact someone that can help you setup and update your machines properly. Your first machine will require updates and you should probably switch to WEP 128 bit encryption for slightly improved security.

The manual is online at: ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/dg824m_ref_manual.pdf The instructions for setting up WEP are under "Wireless Settings".

The only think this router is lacking is WPA-PSK encryption. Whether you need or want that is determined by whether you're worried about someone borrowing your bandwidth or breaking into your system via wireless.

Pleeeeeze don't do that. When you post questions and answers to usenet, blogs, or mailing lists, everyone learns from the exchange. When you convert your problem into an email exchange, then only you benefit from the answers. There's also no opportunity for others to make corrections as the answers are often not exactly correct. (Hint: I screw up all too often). I'm in the consulting business and I consider email tech support to billable consulting at $75/hr. I suspect that's not what you intended.

In the distant past, I would answer all the email questions as time permits. The volume increased to unmanageable levels, so I had to stop. Unless your email contains proprietary information, trade secrets, is unsuitable for general consumption, contains huge attachments, or offers fame and fortune, I really don't wanna deal with it.

Try my suggestions, and post the results. If you're stuck or unable to understand my technobabble, then either post a question, or ask someone locally for onsite help.

Incidentally, I decide to take 5 days off for the Christmas holiday and the very first thing that happens is my office mail server goes insane. I tried to "fix" something after midnight on Friday evening. Bad idea. I wanna see if I can live without email for a few days.

surely you can plug in with a cable for now :-)

Hi Jeff

Thanks for your reply - I have mailed you separately.

Regards,

Paul

Looking at the photos in the manual, there's a page where you enter an ASCII key, which is then converted into 4ea Hex keys for 64 bit encryption. Looks like you found the page, although it's not exactly as I would have expected it to look.

That's the page. All you need is the first of the 4 hex keys.

Bingo. You're done. That's the Hex key I was mumbling about. You're sorta secured with 64 bit WEP, which is not very secure, but better than nothing. Congrats.

OK my apologies - just ignore the email if/when you get it as I am not sure whether it got sent anyway.

I looked at what you suggested but it hasn't really solved the problem per se, although I have now managed to get access. In the basic settings there is no 'key' as you describe, or ability to enter or amend one it at all. The only thing barely resembling one is in the 'Wireless Settings' where there are 4 x 4 boxes of the hexa keys which acted as the 64 bit key for my old PC/LAN card set up. There appears to be no other way of inputting different keys.

Ironically, when the new PC asked for the 'key' I just tried inputting the first 4 boxes of the hexa keys contained in the router and it worked and connected me to the network - does this mean it's now secure? There doesn't appear to be any other way to do it.

Regards

Paul