W98SE wireless lan setup

[Spinman]

Playing around with a recently acquired laptop (ancient) running W98SE.

I just installed a PCMCIA Wireless card (and the associated drivers and software).

I'm at my local library, which offered wi-fi service - trying to get the laptop on the web. All they can tell me is to be sure that WEP is disabled - otherwise, no computer support is available.

When I boot up - the software recognizes the 8 access points in the library - displaying the signal strength and channel, shows that they do not use encription, the authentication is unknown, and their network type is infrastructure.

When I select one of the points - my display says that I am connected.

So far, so good. Is there something I need to do on the W98 side to have IE automatically access the wi-fi connection?

When I open IE - my dial-up box pops-up - because I have it set to dial a phone number when there is no connection. I have gone into the LAN box and tried checking and unchecking the various boxes - but have not complete any string data - figuring that it would not be needed for such a generic connection at the library.

Can someone point me in the right direction? I've done this with XP using the various wizards - but W98 has thrown me for a loop...

[darkfiber1010]

I've never had that problem on 98, but I've had a similar problem on XP when the "Dial whenever a network connection is not present" is checked. Usually if you check "Never Dial a connection", this will solve the problem.

I'm not 100% sure on this but I think the problem has to do with a timeout issue. For what ever reason sometimes when using wireless connections (especially if the signal is weak or response time is slow such as in public access points), IE doesn't always detect the connection in time and if you have the "Dial whenever..." checked, it uses that. This is a theory, but there should be some kind of registry tweak or edit somewhere that lets you increase this timeout. If such a thing existed this would probably fix the problem.

If no such registry edit exists, you can also try this. I realize that you probably want "Dial whenever a network..." checked because it’s just more convent when your using a dial up connection. However if you check "Never Dial..." to fix your wireless issue you can create a shortcut for your Dial up connection on the desktop and click on that before opening IE. I know that’s an extra step when your using your dial-up, but at least you won't have to go into connection options every time and check "never dial a connection" when your trying to use the wireless access.

Or alternatively you could just use Firefox and see what happens

[darkfiber1010]

Me again, just wanted to add that all of the above was assuming that your drivers are installed correctly and that the card is configured correctly. Just out of curiosity, does the wireless connection work on another access points at other locations? Or does it always have this issue regardless of the access point? If it does have the issues reguardless, that could be something other than IE settings causing the problem.

[Spinman]

To my knowlege, the card is installed and configured properly. At least, that's why I went to the library - to check it out. I may have to move on down the road and select another free wi-fi location. Or as a last resort, set up a wi-fi access point on my system at home. (Still dial-up at home).

I did notice that I was getting a reading for an access point at home from one of the neighbors - but when I checked again last night - it was gone.

I also did try it with the never dial a connection box checked - no change in the negative results.

I may have to try the tech support of the card mfg and see if they have any thoughts - unfortunatley, not a lot of applicable info on the FAQ web page.