Hello,

The other day I got a Wireless router with an ADSL model built in called Aztech 600EW (link) - personally I wanted a netgear one but it wasnt really my decision and we ended up with that one. we also got a USB wireless adapter 54MB.

Yesterday I connected the router and set up everything with the help of their support - the router is connected by LAN to my PC and the wireless USB adapter is connected to the other PC in the other room.

I set each PC with its own static IP so I wouldnt have any problems port forwarding and they are both on the same work group and after configuring my firewall to allow these 2 IPs the computers could communicate and share the printer fine.

My problem is, that I have disconnections on the other PC (the one with the wireless USB adapter). it already disconnected twice yesterday and today once 2 minutes after I logged into windows. I came accross this website where it says (first Q&A) that disabling the default windows utility "Wireless Zero Configuration" and letting the Adaper's own utility control it instead could solve the disconnections. so basically I'm waiting to see if it disconnects again. could there be any other cause for those WIRELESS disconnections? mind you, I didnt experience any disconnections on my PC connected by LAN cable so far.

My other question is about the second Q&A on that page above: Wireless USB2 adapter speed - it seems like it connects at 11Mbps instead of the 54Mbps this adapter should. I checked the specifications of my Intel motherboard (D850MV) to see if it supports USB 2.0 and it does. my question is, could it be that the 2.0 isnt on by default so its currently only working on USB 1.1 and thats why I only get 11Mbps instead of 54Mbps speed? if so, how can I fix it/configure so it will use the 54Mbps?

And lastly, question about security. support guy says they dont walk customers through a WPA security settings, only the WEP option which is what I have at the moment as you can see from this screenshot:


I know there is a WPA option to this router but its on another section from the WEP option as you can see here:


As far as I know WPA is a more secure protocol than WEP and I assume i need to choose the PSK string but what exactly do I need to type there? can anyone tell me how to set up WPA security currectly? and does WPA makes the connection slower than WEP or the speed is not effected?

Opps I realized I have one more question, sorry - if I have a program that I want to use on both PCs at the same time - for example msn messenger, how can I port forward it? if I use the defualt ports of msn to forward to PC 1 - I need to forward different port numbers to PC 2. but I dont think msn messenger allows changing the deafult ports or at least I cant see where to change them in messenger's settings/options.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Update:

I found out why I couldnt sign in to messenger on the second PC.
For some reason if I use a hotmail e-mail ending with co.il it won't sign in. then I tried with a hotmail.COM e-mail and it worked! so that was the problem so now both Pcs can use messenger at the same time.

How far away is the wireless pc ?

Thanks for replying Viking, the wireless PC is in the other room (we share a wall) so its very very close.
I think disabling windows utility "Wireless Zero Configuration" did the trick and I havent experienced more disconnections, or at least not that I'm aware of. I also changed to WPA-PSK and in the wireless USB adapter set it to TKIP which seems to be only associated with WPA so I think I configured it right. unfortunately, I still dont know how to change it from saying 11MBPS to 54MBPS that it should be.

P/S- Thats a lot of PCs you have there

yup, three are mine, the HP ( not the media ctr) belongs to a church member who took it to best buy to get it repaired. I was just undoing what geek squad at best buy did, then i actually repaired it.

Very nice of you to help this guy repair his PC Is this what you do for a living?