I purchased a Linkysys wireless router in February and would like to hook my laptop up to it?

Question

Well... the router was hooked up to my cousins desktop and and it routed to my desk top. She moved out and we unhooked the router. I am now going to buy a laptop tomorrow and I want to hook it up to the wireless router. The only problem is that I can't find tha disc that came with the router or any information on how to hook it up to give my laptop a connection. Does anyone know how I could obtain the disc (or what I need off of the disc) and the information to hook it up to my laptop?

Answer 1

First the good news, the disk is just not needed at all.
All you have to do is log in to the router directly. Just connect a cable from your computer to the router (any of the LAN ports). Once connected open a web browser and enter
http://192.168.1.1 (thats the Linksys Default URL for the router. When prompted enter admin for the password without a username (if you didn't change the password) that will take you to the routers setup page.

Just enter the information for your ISP and your done.

To hook up your laptop wirelessly you should change the SSID (its on the wireless setup page of the router and enable WPA security (it will ask for a "passphrase".)
Then on your laptop open you wireless adapter connection and click on your SSID when prompted enter the same "passphrase".. and poof your connected.

If you want step by step just visit http://linksys.com and click on support.

Answer 2

Either you can download a setup disc at linksys or you can do it manually and as they say learn something.
You enter the control panel of the router via a web based browser ( internet explorer) or firefox
In the address bar type

http://192.168.1.1


You should see a control panel
like this

http://kb.earthlink.net/images/8308_01.gif

if you don't try it in firefox
it can be erratic . If you cannot get in
go to internet explorer > tools > options > connections > lan settings and uncheck all then either ok or apply

the default password for linksys is
user: admin
password: admin

You will now see the control panel

Looks like this but without that warning ip dealie

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b255/yamiriyunoa/other/cantgetip.jpg

go to setup

- if you have cable its automatic connection
- i fyou have dsl you will need the logon info from the isp and isp logon password
if you cannot find the paper the installer left call the isp ( best not after school and in the evenings)
the connection type is ppoe or something like that

I would leave the encryption off for the first while until you are sure all is set up.
The most imporant thing is - change the channel from the default channel 6 to any other channel. Channels 1 and 11 are first picks. Your neighbours wireless router signal will drift in out of nowhere. It will be set at the default channel 6.
You will get a good signal strength but no internet.
Make sure the router is high and not cluttered. Also it never hurts to change the default ssid from the name linksys even if you add a digit only.


Help and info on how to secure your wireless network at

http://portforward.com/english/routers/wireless/routerindex.htm

A very useful program is network magic

http://www.networkmagic.com