What the bloody hell am I doing wrong?

[JustinStacey.x]

Ok so I have an iPod touch, a piece of crap netbook which I hate (unfortunately it's my everyday machine) and a 3g wireless USB.

We have no wireless router in here so I thought why not setup an ad-hoc network with the 3g and the netbooks wireless and then I can surf on my iTouch without having to be near the god darned netbook which after this week I am just about ready to throw out the window.

Of course, the first time I try to configure the ad-hoc network using this guide, it took me 3 hours just to get it to work first time.

http://geekandmoney.com/2009/03/3g-interne...-on-windows-xp/

Then when I got it to work, it only did until the next time I shut off the iPod touch. Then when I put it back on, it doesn't work on the wifi again and I have to spend ages fiddling around, turning things off and on, changing from DHCP -which appears to be assigning all the wrong addresses- to manual assignment and back again, basically just constantly fiddling with things until it somehow miraculously works.

Then of course, it does it again, and yet again I find myself having to mindlessly try and make it work again. I just don't know what to do, what I am doing wrong, or what.

Basically the network is like this: 3G Wireless -> Netbook with Wireless -> iPod touch

Obviously the netbook is acting as the router right now but seems to be doing a dire job of it.

The 3g card uses DHCP - I can't change this. The connection is shared using 'Wireless network connection' which has the ip addresses 192.168.0.1 subnet 255.255.255.0

I have tried setting the ip addresses on iPod touch manually like so:

ip address: 192.168.0.2 (have also tried 192.168.0.5, 192.168.0.10 etc)

subnet: 255.255.255.0

dns: 192.168.0.1

router: 192.168.0.1

all of these addresses make sense and seem correct, given those are the values that they are assigned when the iPod is in DHCP mode and is working.

I'm pretty sure it isn't the iPods fault for various reasons, such as it working correctly on a 'proper' wireless router.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to how or when it starts working again, except after a lot of fiddling and frustration. But it always stops after the iPod has been switched off and on again, even when on static IPs, so it's not as if the lease is being renewed.

I just can't see where the problem is. The 3G is working fine (hence me typing this) and all the routing/DNS/DHCP is/should be done by the netbook, on the wireless connection, which is shared to use the 3G and broadcast its connection to the iPod which should then just pick it up and use the netbook basically as a wireless router.

Is this a concept which just doesn't work in real world situations, am I doing something wrong, or is something faulting?

According to the guide I posted this should be a 'it just works' kinda process... and it's not

Please if some of you can shed some light... even if it's just to say I'm chasing a dead end.

[JustinStacey.x]

I've just had a thought, perhaps the fact that I am using WEP encryption is not helping this? I tried using WPA first and the iPod asks for a USERNAME as well as a password?!

Having no idea what that username would be I did try my computer's username and password, no joy. So I rolled back to WEP which I know is a lot weaker but it only asked for a password on the iPod.

Maybe I just need to remove any encryption altogether? Personally I'm not happy with doing this, I live in a fairly well populated area and I don't want anyone to just be able to join my ad-hoc network, browse my files (I know how insecure Windows is, I've passworded and disabled guest account - is this enough?) and generally be a nuisance.

EDIT: I've been doing some reading, and LOADS of people seem to have this issue, on ad-hoc networks, and even some on proper routers. Seems like networking on iPod touch isn't as seemless as Apple would like us to think? Apparently the DHCP being assigned all wrong addresses is due to a wrong input of the wireless password? How stupid, why doesn't it just say it was the wrong key?!

I'm starting to think I should just ditch this idea and spend the dough on a real router...

Edited May 28, 2009 by JustinStacey

[tain]

I don't know anything about iPods but your network seems OK at first glance. But you should disable any security features (encryption, MAC filtering) to get your basic connectivity going. Once you have connectivity then you can enable your security features.

[JustinStacey.x]

that's the thing. i tried that, and it seemed to make no difference at all to whether or not the iPod works. I've been reading from Google though the amount of hassle that people have with ad-hoc networks and the iPod touch just saying 'ustfu', I'll probably just get a router when I can.

Still, why it seems to fail so catastrophically is what I'd love to learn.