Hi, I need some help setting up my Vista to connect to the internet. I have 2 computers and one is windows xp sp2. It's setup with WPA-PSK and uses AES as data encryption. I have MAC Filterting enabled in my router(Linksys WRT54G - uprgraded to DD-WRT Firmware) and I have entered the correct MAC Address for that one. Internet is working fine.

Except When I check my Vista's MAC Address, there are 3 multiple MAC Addresses, I don't know which ones to put and so I put all of them in my router's configuration. Then when I went to go enter my 63 digit ASCII pasword, Vista gives me an error. Saying that the keys don't match. Below are my Vista's MAC Addresses(cmd prompt). I'm very sorry if it looks all messy and I know it's hard to read, but if you can copy and paste all the text onto notepad, it will be much easier to read.

1.)
- Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection: ( I assume I need this one)
- Media disconnected
- Description...............Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
- Physical Address..........00-2D-B9-28-4F-EE

2.)
- Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
- Media dsconnected
- Description...............Realtek RTL8101 Family PCI-E Fast Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0)
- Physical Address..........00-2I-89-3B-77-7E

3.)
- Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection:
- Media disconnected
- Description...............Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
- Physical Address..........02-29-34-56-8E-04

The above is the 3 MAC Addresses, but I am not sure which one I am suppose to use. So yea I just inputted all of them in my Linksys router configuration, but when I enter my password, it gives me an error stating the following:

"The network security key provided does not match the network security key for this network. Please enter it again"

I am very sure that I typed the right keys. I checked so many times and all keys are the same. I am using WPA-PSK(Pre-shared key) and so it is a 63 digit ASCII key. My neighbors have internet too and sometimes their network connections pop up whenever I "view available wireless networks." Sometimes I see 3 entries in the list, but I don't connect to them because of security reasons. At the moment, the Vista laptop is plugged into my Linksys router by way of a grey ethernet cable. The internet is fine when I do that, but when I disconnect the cable, it goes off(duh). All I want to do is try to setup my wireless Vista laptop to connect to internet. But it keeps saying that the key does not match.

I followed the internet setup wizard in Vista. I did everything from entering my SSID and password, but still get back the same results, "key does not match".......I selected WPA-PERSONAL instead of WPA-ENTERPRISE because I found out that WPA-PERSONAL is pre-shared key and that's what I want. And so yes I am using WPA-PERSONAL. I am sure I did everything correct.

Before, both computers was setup with a shared WEP key instead of WPA-PSK and didn't have MAC Address enabled and they didn't have any problems connecting to the internet. But ever since I tried to harden up the security by adding WPA-PSK and enabling MAC filters, my Vista has been having troubles connecting to the net. Also my internet disconnects on and off from time to time, it gets very annoying. I found out that WPA is vulnerable to DoS attacks, and they are very dangerous. If there is a way to prevent these kind of attacks, please let me know. Any ideas on how to fix Vista's connection?

Some more info:
- Linksys WRT54G (upgraded to the latest firmware dd-wrt)

- Wireless mode = AP

- Wireless Network Mode = Mixed ( I didn't know the differece between B-Only and G-Only, and so I just selected the default which is "mix")

- Wireless Network Name(ssid) = anything

- MAC Filtering = enabled ( Filter is set to "Permit only PC's listed to access the wireless network)

regards,
larry

Hi larry "rgod", hi everyone

First of all, at this moment my one and only Vista running PC is not connected wireless to the Internet and there for I may not able to completely answer your questions. I have a Linksys WRT54G router too, firmware version v4.20.8 which might not be the latest (need to check on that, thanks for the reminder).

The first thing that comes to mind is;
does the Wireless LAN Adapter on the laptop (running Vista) support WPA-PSK or even better WPA2-PSK?

Also you might want to enable SSID broadcast and disable Wireless MAC-address filter, after you verified that the laptop's Wireless adapter does support WPA-PSK, in a attempt to get the laptop connected the first time.
Once it get's connected you can start with enabling the Wireless MAC-address filter, add the Wireless LAN Adapter MAC-address: 00-2D-B9-28-4F-EE ( 1.) the one you assumed.), and check if it remains connected. If that also passes succesfully, disable SSID broadcast.

A simple to way to be 100% sure the 63 digit ASCII key is correct, is to open Notepad in Vista and type in your 63 digit ASCII key (no space or Enter at the end of the key). From within Notepad, copy the 63 digit key and paste it when prompted to enter the key while setting up your wireless connection.

I wonder where did you found or set:
- Wireless mode = AP

- Wireless Network Mode = Mixed
Means as much as that the WiFi part of your router will support both 11Mbps (802.11b) and 54Mbps (802.11g) Wireless LAN Adapters, providing of course that the MAC-address of the specific adapter is enterred in to the allowed list once the Wireless MAC-filter is enabled.

- MAC Filtering = enabled ( Filter is set to "Permit only PC's listed to access the wireless network)
Good choice!

Best Regards and Wishes,
The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

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Hi there,

"The first thing that comes to mind is;
does the Wireless LAN Adapter on the laptop (running Vista) support WPA-PSK or even better WPA2-PSK?"

Yes. It is confirmed that my wireless Vista laptop support WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK.

Anyway, my internet is fixed. The weird thing is, if I use my PC desktop to configure everything in my router and setup the WPA keys and setup MAC Addresses, my PC will connect to the internet but Vista will have problems and won't connect. It keeps saying the keys don't match.

But this time I used Vista to configure my router and input all of the information that's needed for a connection to be made, and it works. I don't know why it's like that but yea I find that very weird.

As for:
- Wireless mode = AP

- Wireless Network Mode = Mixed

I found that in "Wireless" tab under "Basic Settings" tab. Once you upgrade your routers firmware like mine(Linksys WRT54G) into DD-WRT, you will get those options. I know a complete guide/tutorial that will help you upgrade a WRT54G v4 firmware into DD-WRT v23 SP2 which I have. Keep in mind that it depends on which WRT54G version you have. I have version 4. The tutorial for that, you can find here.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.ph...

more info:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.ph...

Many thanks for replying and helping me fix my problem =)

regards,
larry

Hi all, I am having a similar problem with connecting to the internet and need ur help.
(1st of all i have to warn u that my knowledge about networks is very very limited...)
My cousin who has a wireless internet connection set it up using the WPA security and used a USB stick to transfer the settings automatically from his 1st computer to his 2nd computer. His 1st computer is now broken, so when I needed to connect, he gave me the settings using his 2nd computer. I tried using them, but i get the message that the keys don't much. I also tried to manually ender the key, but get the same again. What can I do? I am sure that my wireless works as I tried it in a neighbours wirelless connection with no security and it worked fine.

Please help.
-Dimitris