Wireless Internet non-connection, properties error

[Greggsy]

Hi, our internet's been acting up for the last couple of weeks, and for a few days on end it will refuse to connect to our network - on the list of networks window, a red cross will appear next to our network, and any enquiries will state that there is a problem with the security settings or properties. However they are correct, with two interesting points -

1) On entering the password and being denied, looking again at the settings will show that the password entered (starred out) will be shortened by a few characters.

2) The correct settings are No Authentication and a WEP encyrpted password, which will not work. However if the settings are set to WPA-Personal and TKIP encryption, the connections screen will show the row of green bars indicating signal instead of a red cross, but connection attempts fail.

It seems to sporadically start working again, then go for a few days. As far as I can tell there is no problem with the wireless router itself. Any help would be hugely appreciated, thanks in advance!

[johnwill]

Please supply the following info, exact make and models of the equipment please.

Name of your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
Make and exact model of the broadband modem.
Make and exact model and hardware version of the router (if a separate unit).
Model numbers can usually be obtained from the label on the device.
Connection type, wired or wireless.
If wireless, encryption used, (none, WEP, WPA, or WPA2)
Version and patch level of Windows on all affected machines, i.e. XP (Home or Pro), SP1-SP2-SP3, Vista (Home, Business, Ultimate), etc.
The Internet Browser in use, IE, Firefox, Opera, etc.




Please give an exact description of your problem symptoms, including the exact text of any error messages.

• If you're using a wireless connection, have you tried a direct connection with a cable to see if that changes the symptoms?
• For wireless issues, have you disabled all encryption on the router to see if you can connect that way?
• Have you connected directly to the broadband modem to see if this is a router or modem/ISP issue?
• If there are other computers on the same network, are they experiencing the same issue, or do they function normally?

On any affected computer, I'd also like to see this:

Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD (COMMAND for W98/WME) to open a command prompt:

Type the following commands on separate lines, following each one with the Enter key:

PING 206.190.60.37

PING yahoo.com

NBTSTAT -n

IPCONFIG /ALL

Right click in the command window and choose Select All, then hit Enter.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.