Toshiba Laptop Help

[shakalaka]

Ok, so I have a Toshiba Satellite A200-AH8 PSAEOC-AH808C. It orginally came with Windows Vista installed and stuff, and I found it to be too slow, so last night I deleted it and installed windows xp on it.

I've found several drivers for it that I need looking around the internet, however I am having a problem now with wireless drivers. I found couple wiresless drivers, one is by atheros and there is another one and not knowing which one I need I installed them both. Even though I can see the wirless connection icon in the taskbar and it says wireless networds are available. I can see my home network there as well, however whenever I try to connect to it after putting my passoword, it gives me an error saying that it can only take certain kind of characters, i.e. numbers. Now my password contains both letters and numbers and it won't let me connect to it.

So I am wondering if I have some wrong drivers installed or something, or someone can help me find the correct wireless drivers, it would be great.

Thanks

[HyperZell]

Do you have the right security settings enabled or selected when you try to connect? Some types can only take certain characters...

[Thaco]

you might have to find the long version of the password, not your short password, if you go in to your router it may tell you what the long version is.


what type of security are you using?

[shakalaka]

In the router page it says
Security: WPA2 Personal

Then I can see my password. I am not quite sure how to find the long key?

[gqmw]

I'm thinking there's something messed up with your security settings. That's really weird though. Perhaps you can try changing your password to all numbers. Then use the computer to connect. If you still can't connect, then you know it's not just the number problem.

[shakalaka]

I think it's something wrong with the laptop I am thinking. Like maybe I have found a wrong driver maybe or something else. Because our other laptop has xp and it connects fine with the same password, and same with the iphones.

[shakalaka]

And maybe I have missing drivers for ethernet as well, cause when I insert the ethernet cable into the laptop, the internet still doesnt work. So I am thinking I need wireless drivers and ethernet drivers for my computer for XP. Anyone know where I can get this?

[shakalaka]

So I stumbled upon this software that tells me what kind of drivers I need and I found them and as I was installing them, my wirless connection was being changed. So now it shows that I am connected and signal strength is excellent and everything, however I still can't use internet.

When I run the diagnostics it shows that is unable to obtain the IP address. And when I go configure the wireless account and put in the correct password, it shows the exact same error it did before.

Which goes

"The network password needs to be 40bits or 104bits depending on your network configuration. This can be enetered as 5 or 13 ascii characters or 10 or 26 hexadecimal characters."


Any ideas?

[shakalaka]

So I changed the password of the router to the one my laptop wasn't showing that error with. It shows its connected and everything, but still doesn't work.

[shakalaka]

Ok so I changed my router security from WPA2 to WEP and changed the password the characters it accepts and it works now. But it's still strange nonetheless cause my other XP laptop worked fine with the earlier password and security settings. So I am still wondering what was wrong with it and how can I fix that and change the router settings to the previous one's.


But now I have another problem. I have a SD card slot in my computer which worked before. Now when I insert a card in it, it doesn't work. I installed the driver which installed fine and everything, and when I try to run it, it brings up that 'send error report' page and when I insert the SD card nothing happens.

Can anyone help?

[Grogador]

I'd recommend changing your WiFi back to WPA2 and entering the proper key. Sounds like you're getting the ascii/hex versions of the key mixed up?

Driver for SD slots sounds broken, try rolling it back or getting one off Windows Update or Toshiba...

[shakalaka]

Originally posted by Grogador
I'd recommend changing your WiFi back to WPA2 and entering the proper key. Sounds like you're getting the ascii/hex versions of the key mixed up?

Driver for SD slots sounds broken, try rolling it back or getting one off Windows Update or Toshiba...

If I change it back to wpa2 then it will stop working? I would prefer to have it back, but dont know how to surpass that error that keeps on coming.

[Grogador]

*shrug* it's your network and machines... WEP is trivial to crack.

[shakalaka]

I know that, but I am just so confused about that ascii/hex error! It won't let me connect. :dunno: :banghead:

[shakalaka]

Ok so I am pretty sure that drivers are fine since when I change the security to WEP, it works.

When I open the Wireless Network Connection wizard on my computer and it searches for all the wireless connection it says

"This wireless network requires the use of a network key [WEP]. To access this network, type the key, then click connect."



So for some reason it only has the WEP as network key in the settings or something and I can't figure out why, how or from where. Can someone shed some light on this?



AND

I downloaded the SD Utilities from another sources and again it downloads fine but when I click on its icon under programs it gives me the same errror of send error report.

[rage2]

Sorry for being late into the thread, but you need to install the latest XP Service Pack (I believe full support came with SP2). WPA wasn't introduced in RTM XP. Once you have the latest service pack, you can connect properly to WPA networks and it'll let you enter the passphrase.

Your wireless drivers also have to be WZC compatible. If you've download the latest wireless drivers, chances are, it is. Only wireless drivers bundled with a laptop prior to SP1 will have problems with WZC.

I run into this quite regularly, seeing as we still use XP for the most part. Whenever we rebuild an older laptop from recovery disks, I have to patch the OS and install more recent wireless drivers.

[shakalaka]

Thanks a lot Rage. So I did the update and I see the whole thing is completely different and looks newer and up to date now. When I open the Wireless Network Connection window it finds couple of wireless connctions including my own. Which I double click on enter the password in.

However after processing it says it's connected but in the main window it says Not Connected and the internet doesn't work. Connectivity doctor shows that it is unable to get an IP address or something. It shows that I am connected because to get out of it, it asks me if I want to disconnect. But on the top beside the wifi name it shows not connected.

[shakalaka]

For the drivers I downloaded the

Intel(R) PROset/Wireless Software

and for my Wireless LAN Hardware and Driver Version
it says

Hardware: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

Driver Version: 11.1.1.16


While installing the driver I downloaded something with the same hardware name, however I am not too sure wether the driver version was exactly the same or not.

[rage2]

Are you using the Windows Zero Configuration connector or the Intel one where you have to enter a bunch of crap?

I personally prefer the WZC one... just double click on a link, it detects the type of security, and asks for the proper password.

If you're using the Intel one, there's an option somewhere there to "allow windows to manage wireless connections" or something like that. That'll disable the Intel client so it just monitors traffic and let windows handle everything easily.

[shakalaka]

Originally posted by rage2
Are you using the Windows Zero Configuration connector or the Intel one where you have to enter a bunch of crap?

I personally prefer the WZC one... just double click on a link, it detects the type of security, and asks for the proper password.

If you're using the Intel one, there's an option somewhere there to "allow windows to manage wireless connections" or something like that. That'll disable the Intel client so it just monitors traffic and let windows handle everything easily.

Pardon my ignorance, but I have no idea what the WZC is? Where are these settings? Where do I go to look at them or fix them?

I double click on the icon that appears on the taskbar which opens up available wirless networks and then I select mine and it asks me for password. Not sure if that's what you were asking?

[shakalaka]

I dont know what happened but when I click on the wireless icon in the taskbar it shows this

Windows cannot configure this wireless connection
If you have enabled another program to manage this
wireless connection, use that software.
If you want Windows to configure this wireless
connection, start the Wireless Zero Configuration (WZC)
service. For information about starting the WZC service,
see article 871122 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base on the
microsoft.com Web site.

And my intel is managing the wireless accounts now, but whenever I open it, it gives me an error message saying I don't have the right version. And then when it finds wireless connections the space where you put in a password doesn't allow me to put letters.

And I looked for that article 871122 on google followed the steps it told me, but nothing changed. Restarted the computer and wireless network connections still shows the same thing.:banghead: :banghead:

[adam c]

you know you can try contacting toshiba and see if they have drivers for such this operation of going from vista to xp

some companies do some don't

[shakalaka]

Ok so I got it back to the windows wireless but I still can't connect though. Same problem as before while connecting it shows connected but the beside the name 'not connected' and internet not working.

[shakalaka]

Well it works now. But the most annoying thing is I couldn't get to do it, asked my brother to have a look at it and he literally got it working in 2 minutes. And I had been head banging with for the entire day. I am just glad I didn't pick a degree in computers like my brother.

Anyway thanks everyone for your inputs. :thumbsup: