How to set up a wireless network...?

Asked by arthurbach4 (6) November 12th, 2007

So I wish to set up a wireless network to enable both a PS3 (which I have) and a PVR (which I am about to purchase) to stream media from my laptop.

I am a massive noob in this area so any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is the equipment I have:

Laptop, which has neither internal wireless or Bluetooth capabilities. It does have an Ethernet connection and it also has a connection which has the words “Expansion Port 2” written near it (if that means anything re what I am trying to achieve.)

Netgear 4 port wireless router connected wirelessly to my laptop through a 54 Mbps wireless pc card (wg511 v2)

Windows XP Home edition.

Ps3 with wireless and Bluetooth capabilities. I already have this connected to the internet through the wireless router. (just not the media server thingy.)

Windows Media Player 11 (apparently this is used in regards the PS3 media sharing)

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I will tell you what I have attempted so far and you can chuckle out loud for a while then see if you can help me out :)

I clicked on control panel>wireless network setup wizard>ok>set up a new wireless network.

I give the new network a name and leave it checked on “automatically assign a network key”

Now it asks how I want to set up my network.

It recommends using a USB flash drive which I tried first of all and it put some kind of setup program on there. It then said to put the drive in the wireless access point, then the other computer (which I assume can also be the PS3) and then finally back into the host computer.

The first hurdle I came across was the fact that the wireless router I have does not have a USB port!

At this point I am starting to wonder whether I have all of the required equipment (perhaps some sort of networking specific hardware is missing?)

Still that is what you are all for!

I decided to come at this from a different angle so I go back to where it recommends using the USB drive to continue with the network setup.

There is another option which says “set up a network manually.”

When I choose this option it says “Depending on the wireless software running on this computer, the wireless network setup wizard might not work.”

It then would not allow me to go any further.

This confuses me momentarily till I try another option and it makes more sense…

I go to control panel>network connections>new connection wizard

Near the bottom of this next page it has a hyper link to “view wireless networks in range.”

When I click on this it goes to a page which says “choose a wireless connection.”

But in the panel it says “windows cannot configure this wireless connection. If you have enabled another program to configure this wireless connection, use that software. If you want to use windows to configure this wireless connection click “change advanced settings,” click the wireless connections tab then select the check box labeled “use windows to configure my wireless network settings.”

When I do exactly this and then click on “view wireless networks” it comes up with a warning. “You have made changes to the properties of this connection. If you proceed your changes will be lost. Do you wish to proceed?”

At this point I panic that I will lose my current wireless internet connection and instead ask the experts (that’s you.)

Does the fact that my pc connects to the wireless router through some sort of Netgear proprietary software factor in here?

So can I do this thing wirelessly? If not can I do it with cords and if so how would I achieve that?

Thanks so much for your help.

Ok so I have an update:

When I was initially attempting all of the above I was connected to the internet wirelessly through the wireless pc card as I was doing it.

I swapped from the wireless connection to the Ethernet connection and tried the: control panel>wireless network setup wizard>ok>set up a new wireless network thing.

This time I by-passed the recommended USB option for the “set up a network manually.” Option.

Whereas before it gave me this warning, “Depending on the wireless software running on this computer, the wireless network setup wizard might not work.” Now it let me go through and asked me to print out a set of network settings which were to be entered into the host computer/router and the other computer (ie. PS3)

I printed out the settings but am reasonably clueless as to where exactly to enter them.

Is it though the little Netgear icon in the system tray? Where on the PS3? Where on the host computer?

Again I apologize for the noobness but we all have to start somewhere right?

Pete.