network login problem

[techbydefault]

I am in a school situation and need help fast. Just installed DLink N access points throughout school. All the wireless laptops with built-in connected fine. Had to buy 20 wireless cards for some Compaqs because the Cisco cards we had don't support WPA-PSK. Bought Airlink cards. Have some of the Compaqs running Win2K others are Win XP.

Here's the problem. Used to be the students only had to log-in and they were on the network. Now, they can only log into Windows as we get the message domain not found message. Wait it gets more intriguing. If you just let the computer sit there for 5 to 10 minutes, it will find the network. We just can't wait 10 minutes for each class to start. If you log out and then back in, it's another wait.

The AP is inside the classroom, I have downloaded new drivers for both AP and the AirLink cards, tried changing AP channels, and a lot more. Please somebody, tell me what obivous, simple thing am I missing. We are already over a month into school and I can't have this classroom offline much longer.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

 

[tipstir]

Why did you buy Dlink N? I would have gone with High Speed 54G 125Mbp MINO. Well it doesn't matter what WPA or WEP you're using. Don't you have model setup to test to see what's working or not. Test signal with one of these laptops before you rollout everything at once.

 

[techbydefault]

We did buy one DLink N AP first and tried it with everything. I works extremely well. Better than we could have dreamed. That was when we discovered that only the Compaqs with the Cisco cards wouldn't do the WPA-PSK. We bought one card to try in the Compaqs and it didn't work so we returned it and bought one AirLink card. It seemed to work, but we didn't pay attention to the time issue as we were working on updating software on all the computers. Anyway, then we went out and bought the others. Needless to say, the students don't get onto computers the first week of school and by the time they did, I was in a jam.

 

[tipstir]

You can run any WEP or WPA-PSK, but you'll need to load the software client manager that comes with the Router or the Wireless NIC. This depends on what you have. I don't know what DLINK N includes on the CD. Other's include wireless client manager that allows you to change XPs default encryption.

That's the only way the Compaqs will work. It might work with the CISCO cards (Aironet).

 

[techbydefault]

It's the Cisco cards that won't do the WPA-PSK that we need. That's why we had to get the new cards.

 

[tipstir]

Alright, now that is done, when you access the router do you see all the wireless clients. Also remember some wireless routers have a limited to how many clients (wireless) can be connected at the same time.


So you have WPA-PSK setup
How about the MAC address method?

When you test the network in the school do you see the clients in the router DHCP Table. Since you use DLINK it might be called something different?