WEP key problem

Step 1.

Open a terminal, if your using the gnome desktop the quickest way is to press Control, Alt and T together.

Type

sudo iwlist scan

This will ask for your password then list all the wireless connections it can see together with the encryption settings (ie type eg
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
)

can you see the wifi you are trying to connect to? I always recommend people change the wifi ESID if possible to keep it unique. For example I can see two stations called "BTOpenZone" and they are both close enough that I should be able to connect to them.

Step 2 look at the channel numbers. Ideally your wifi station should have a nice clean signal and be on a channel by its self and preferably the channel number should be at least 5 away from any others you can see (most people use 1, 6 and 11 for that reason). If you, can see the wifi its on a free channel and the encryption type is correct are you sure you have the correct key?

If the answer to all these is yes then the next most likely problem is that the router has been told only to accept certain MAC-IDs . Most routers have a web page you can access. If its your router then the details will be in the documentation that came with it; You may need to connect using an ethernet cable to do this. If not you will need to ask the person who administers your wifi to check for you.

If you are still having problems after all this post the output from the command

sudo iwlist scan

back here and I'll try to help you figure out whats going wrong.

Hi Warren,

Thank you for your help. I am new to Ubuntu and while i am able to see all the functions working properly, i am unable to connect to my BT Hub. Following is what I have asc output for your suggested solution.

Cell 02 - Address: 00:1F:9F:3D:3E:41
                    Channel:1
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Quality=49/70 Signal level=-61 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    ESSID:"BTHomeHub-3DD6"
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
                    Mode:Master
                    Extra:tsf=00000013758e200c
                    Extra: Last beacon: 280ms ago
                    IE: Unknown: 000E4254486F6D654875622D33444436
                    IE: Unknown: 010882848B962430486C
                    IE: Unknown: 030101
                    IE: Unknown: 2A0104
                    IE: Unknown: 2F0104
                    IE: Unknown: 32040C121860
                    IE: Unknown: DD090010180200F0000000
                    IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101880003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00

The problem is serious as ihave demolished my better halfs laptop with promise of a faster machine witrh access to internet & skype. HELP.... I cannot go back to XP.

Regards

If you haven't got one yet get an ethernet cable.

We are going to temporarily connect using a wired connection so we can check the configuration and make sure we have everything set correctly. Once we have done that we should be able to remove the cable and work wireless.

in a termnal type

ifconfig;route -n

My output looks as follows yours should be similar

...
warren@wmh-lt:~$ ifconfig;route -n
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:23:54:68:5b:44
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:16 Base address:0xb800

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:61 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:61 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:5470 (5.4 KB) TX bytes:5470 (5.4 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:22:43:30:73:35
          inet addr:192.168.0.2 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::222:43ff:fe30:7335/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:16608 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:9402 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:18196589 (18.1 MB) TX bytes:1329974 (1.3 MB)

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 2 0 0 wlan0
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 1000 0 0 wlan0
0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 wlan0
...

In my case I'm connecting wirelessly so I look at "wlan0" you will be using a wire so look at "eth0"

The line:
          inet addr:192.168.0.2 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0

Tells me I am connected to a network and my IP address is 192.168.0.2

At the bottom I can see a Gateway address In my case this is 192.168.0.1 yours may be the same or different.

This is the address of your router.

In your favorite web browser "Firefox" for example enter this address as shown below using the address you got above.

http://192.168.0.1

At this point you will probably be asked for a user name and password. Sorry I have no experience with BTHomeHub so I can't guess the answers here but it will be in the documentation that came with your router.

Open another tab in Firefox and try an address on the internet for example.

http://www.bbc.co.uk

Check you can surf the web. I am assuming you will be able to. If not we can work on that next. Close the tab so you are again looking at the routers web page from here you can set and change the wireless properties of your router.

I am hoping that everything from here makes sense but if anyone here has experience of BTHomeHub feel free to contribute.

Personally I would use WPA encryption as it is stronger. Make a carefull note of the encryption type and passwords.
Note: Passwords are case sensitive

You should then be able to set-up your PC to connect wirelessly Disconnect the LAN cable

You have a LAN Status indicator in the bar at the top of the screen right click on this and select "Edit Connections..."

If you see your connection here, under the wireless tab, you can change the security type and password to match your router if not close it then

Right click the LAN status indicator again and click the named of your router "BTHomeHub-3DD6" It will ask for the password and you should be connected.

You may need to then go back into "Edit Connections.." to make your PC remember this as default.