Trying to install a second computer with an Orange "dongle"

[mogs]

I am tearing what hair I have left out!We have one PC connected to Livebox via an Ethernet cable, a wifi laptop also connected and have spent this week trying to connect a third computer using a dongle as it is not wifi.

We bought the dongle 29,99 euros and the damn thing does not seem to be picking up the internet.  It is showing the livebox on its Wifi in range, but trying to go through the process of it actually accepting the dongle and finally getting the internet has been a nightmare.   According to the instructions which we have followed we should get to a step which asks us to key in the wifi key, but for some reason during the installation it seems to skip this stage.

   We have pressed the WIFI button on the livebox, we watch the signal going across and trying to be picked up, and at one stage we even got passed this to the TEST stage.   This is where we always seem to get scuppered.Any ideas or suggestions anyone, please?

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Are you running Norton antivirus?

[mogs]

No, and I've disabled the AV software that I use so this is not the problem.   I am pretty computer literate, but this problem is really perplexing me so any suggestions appreciated.

[Ron Avery]

I tried to connect a second Wi-FI PC using a netgear dongle recommended by a poster on here and had exactly the same problems that you are having.  The dongle just would not associate to the Livebox, I tried the repair wizards, test etc spent hours trying to make it work,  I swapped over dongles from PC to PC and picked up the Livebox straight away on the 2nd PC but it did not work in reverse,  so went I bought another Sagem dongle from FT and with the CD supplied with it connected the second PC to the Livebox in seconds.  People will tell you as they did me any dongle should work and it should, but that CD did the trick, why I don't know, maybe sagem liveboxes don't like other make dongles.  Another thought, you are not running Vista on the new PC are you?

[mogs]

This 2nd PC used to work with a different Wanadoo dongle, but since our move and the change of Livebox the old dongle wouldn't work.

We bought the new dongle and CD to install it, but oddly enough when it installs the driver it is EXACTLY the same dongle as the old one!   I'll give it another go today and if it doesn't work I'll go and bury it in the garden!!  Just to make me feel better that is.

No, it's not Vista its windows XP.

Any further suggestions?

[Ron Avery]

but oddly enough when it installs the driver it is EXACTLY the same dongle as the old one! 

I thought from your first post that this was a new installation to a 3rd computer not Wi-fi enabled so you were using a dongle bought for 30€?  If it cost 30€ its not one from FT for the Livebox, they are far dearer.

When you says your PC is showing the "same" modem as the old one, is it actually the same as the old one or is the PC looking for a piece of hardware that is no longer installed?

When I had my fun and games with the second PC , it kept trying to find the old modem which of course was a dial up and no use, so I had to remove that old modem from the PC's connection file.

When you plug in your dongle into your PC it should" find" it, does it?  The driver that FT provide with their sagem dongle actually is written for a new stand alone installation or a second PC using Wi-Fi, that might really be your best option.

[David]

Just a thought,

On the pc have you gone to tools, internet options, and checked which type of connection the pc is trying to connect to?  i.e., is the "never dial a connection" tab checked?

David

[mogs]

David

No I haven't checked this, so what should I make sure I do, i.e make sure never dial a connection is not checked?

We haven't altered anything since we had connection before with the other livebox/dongle.

[David]

Mogs,

The problem you are having sounds similar to a problem I had with my laptop.

Eventually I went to the tools menu in both internet explorer and outlook express.  For Internet Explorer I went to tools, Internet Options, connections, and checked all the settings.  In particular I checked the "never dial a connection" box, that is, I clicked on the little button beside the "never dial a connection" so the button had a green dot in the centre.

After that I had no more problems.  I think that somehow this button had been cleared, and although the laptop had recognised the livebox, it was trying to connect to a dial up connection through the livebox rather than connect to the broadband.

This may not be your problem, but it is very simple to check and may be worth a try.

Good luck,

David

[mogs]

I made sure the "never dial a connection" is ticked.

I've tried to reinstall the CD for the dongle/livebox again and again, each time something different seems to happen.

Now I've got a message saying the "the Livebox .... requires a network key, I type in the WEP key and then confirm it" but it doesn't seem to be recognising the WEP key. 

Any more suggestions please, this is so frustrating.

 

[mogs]

I've taken a look at my Livebox preferences page and as my French isn't too brilliant I am not sure if I need to do something on this page to add the supplementary computer + dongle?

It's under Preferences

Peripheriques

and at the bottom is says Peripherique Wi-Fi and then add

should I put something in this box so that I am telling the Livebox that I want to add something else?

thanks

 

[Rjpfrancais]

Hi mogs,

I have only just seen your post hence the late reply, and you may have solved the problem by now. But anyway, this is what I think is your problem;

You will not be able to connect a Wifi device (i.e. dongle, laptop with built in wifi etc) to a Livebox (or any wireless router) unless it is in 'promiscuous mode'.

To explain, Liveboxes come with two basic levels of security;

MAC Address Filtering

WEP Encryption. (encrpts the signal between the Wifi dongle and the Livebox)

Every network device has a 'MAC address' (nothing to do with Apple MAC's). The Livebox maintains a list of these and will only allow WiFi devices that are on its list to connect to it. So, if you try and connect to it with a dongle that has a MAC address that's not on the list, forget it. The Livebox will reject the connection and you won't get the chance to enter the WEP key.

To attach a new wifi device you need to put the Livebox in 'promiscuous mode', which means that for a short time it will accept connections from Wifi devices with MAC addresses that are not on its internal list.

How to do this?

There are two types of Livebox in the wild in France, one made by Sagem and the other by Inventel. (Actually I think there might be a third type but I have never seen one.) 

On the Sagem boxes, there is a little black button on the botton next to the power connector, press this and the Wifi light will start blinking, indicating that you can connect a new device.

On the Inventel boxes, there are two grey buttons on the back, you press one of those. I think from memory its button B but I haven't got access to one of these boxes at the moment so I can't confirm this. BUT the Inventel box is the same type that Orange sell in the UK so if you dig around on the Orange UK site you should be able to find the English manual online.

For the sake of completeness, I will add that (should you be so inclined) you can turn off Mac address filtering on the Sagem boxes via the menus but I have never found a way to do this on the Inventel ones.

I hope that helps

  

 

 

[mogs]

Thank you for your detailed reply RJP.   I don't know if Inventel is the same as the Thomson Livebox (mini) which we have?   On going through the pairing" stage, and pressing the WiFi button on the Livebox, this still did not resolve the problem.  I am not sure if this is the button you mention?  There are a couple of grey buttons on the side, one is a Reboot one is a WiFi and hidden away there is also a Reset button.  I've learned from experience that if you press the Reset button, you have to completely reinstall everything again.

On packing up the new dongle back into the box (cos I was going to take it back and see if I can get a refund (ha ha), I noticed that there is a MAC number on this too.   Should I type in this number, on the configuration of the Livebox somewhere so as to get it to recognise a new piece of equipment?

[Ron Avery]

Mogs. 

According to Orange the Thomson is not a Livebox, so that may be your problem, its a modem.

Type Thomson: Livebox into Google.co.uk  there is lots about using a Thomson modem but it need a fast line speed.  The firsrt three listings may help you as they are all about thomson modems amd actual livebox installation.

[Rjpfrancais]

Er Ron, I don't think you are correct on that one. I think Mogs probably has what's called a Thomson Livebox Mini. Check out this link http://www.forum-orange.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=2943  amd if you page down you will see that some kind soul has posted pictures of the thing. It says on it 'LIVEBOX' in big letters and if you look at the second photo you can see it says Thomson on the label at the bottom.

Mogs, sorry I have run out of ideas as regards solving your actual problem except to say that if you translate the first post in the above link, it talks quite a bit about 'Easy Pairing' and it might give you a clue as to what to do.

Hope that helps.

 

[mogs]

I've tried to install the dongle via the main PC which is usually connected to the Livebox via an ethernet.   I still have the same problems it is just not "associating".

To try manually via the XP programme it's picking the dongle up, picking up the livebox ok - it asks for the name of the SSID and then it asks for a network key, which I don't know so I can't go any further forward with this either.

Off to FT this morning to see if they have a solution.

[fivecats]

You may have already gone to France telecom but the network key is normally found at the bottom of the livebox on the little sticker. It is called the Clef Wep.

[Rjpfrancais]

Hi Mogs,

the network key is usually printed on the sticker on the bottom.

I know it can be a frustrating business sometimes getting Wifi to work, other times it works like a breeze. But be assured there is nothing 'non standard' about the Liveboxes so they should be able to talk to any Wifi dongle that supports the 802.11b/g standards, which is basically all of them. So what I am saying is that it should be do-able. So stick at it :-)

Bonne Chance.

 

 

[mogs]

Through the manual install I've put the WEP key in, exactly as on the livebox but then it tells me that the key is wrong, so I try again and still the same happens!

France Telecom were ever helpful - not - the guy said we must ring 3900 for help - we've tried this several times, over and over again and haven't been able to speak to anyone yet.   He understood this, but refused to replace the dongle (or refund it) in case it's not working.

So, still frustrated and very fed up as I've wasted a morning now when I could have been in my garden!

[steve]

I know this may sound like I'm being rude, but I'm not, honestly.... (it took me 6 very long hours setting one of ours up wifi)

When you enter the wep key, it has to be EXACTLY the same as what is on the sticker, and watch for the 0's that look like noughts and vice versa.

When you hit the wifi button on the box, you only have about 5 minutes to get the connection going, if you don't do it in that time, it resets itself and you have to start over again.

You could always go into the livebox security settings, and have a look at what it is set to recieve? Just a thought.

[mogs]

Thank you for that answer Steve, I've tried what you suggested (many times in the last 3 weeks) to no avail.

Could you explain what you mean about going into the security settings please?   By that I mean what do I look for, and what do I change if necessary?  

I took the dongle to a computer shop today, they tested it and said it was ok as his machine picked up the wifi ok.

Back to square one[:'(]

[steve]

On my box, you go into the security settings, (password protected, admin is the default password for both user and password) go to security and then go to wireless. When you are in there you will see that you can change the settings to wap, wep etc, it will also allow you to see if the dongle has been found by the box, as it will have assigned your computer number to it.

Try playing around with those for a while, I had to do this quite a bit while setting it up, I found that to bypass everything, I had to turn the security off which allowed the wireless connection to work, and then turn it back on again, hoping and praying that it didn't register the dongle as a threat, which it didn't thank god!

Good luck.

[mogs]

In my parameters page I have

Activation du serveur DHCP
Adresse IP LAN
Masque de sous-réseau
Début de la plage DHCP
Fin de la plage DHCP

In my connexion sans fil I have

Nom de la livebox (SSID) :
Mode :		bgb+g
Choix du canal :		Automatique12345678910111213 Canal actif: 6
Clé de sécurité :
Mode de sécurité :		Pas de sécuritéWPA-PSKWEPWPA2-PSK
Option de sécurité :		TKIPAES

Activer l'installation WiFi facile

In the Liste des équipements WiFi appairés I have nothing in the following box (even though I already have a laptop which is WiFi enabled.

In the WiFi page I have the following details

WiFi activé		1
	Statut WiFi		Up
	Adresse MAC WIFI de la Livebox		00:18:E7:23:00:6F
	Débit wifi (radio)		Auto
	Canal		6
	Nom de la livebox (SSID)		Livebox-B270
	Clef WEP
	Index de la clef WEP		1

Is there something in this list that needs to be changed to allow a second WiFi?  The adresse MAC  WIFI number is not the same as the MAC number on my livebox but would it be the number of my Laptop MAC - sorry I am a numpy nuts regarding all these installation numbers

Thanks

[clarksinfrance]

Mogs

Firstly where are you? there may be someone close to hand who can pop over and take a look with a fresh pair of eyes.

Can you clarify a few things?

On the first PC (the working one) what version of Oranges' software do you have (Gestionnaire Internet) could be version 6 7 or 8, plus various sub releases. Lokk for a ? or help on the software which should reveal some info.

What is the Operating system on the first PC?

I have a thought to make sure the OS of the second PC is compatible with the Orange software, for instance version 8 is designed for Vista. and not XP.

Is it possible to get the second pc close to the Livebox? If so connect using the network cable first, then when all is working, disconnect it and try again with the wi-fi dongle.

As you have already explained the 2nd PC will work with the 1st dongle so the PC isn't at fault. The Livebox works with both PCs as you have tried both dongles in both PCs. The Dongles both work, again you have tried both on both machines. The only issue that remains is the 2nd dongle doesn't work with the 2nd PC, therefore: it can only be a communication problem between 2nd dongle and livebox, when it is connected to 2nd PC. So it means that the issue is the 2nd PC is not sending (correct) information to 2nd dongle. This means only 3 things can exist.

1 Driver for 2nd dongle on 2nd PC is not correct.

2 Orange software is incorrect version,

or this from left field:

3 The USB port on your PC is not configured correctly/not working.

Anywhere nr Baud in Brittany? if so give me a shout.

Regards

Nick

[Ian Rough]

Hi there,

I am having similar problems, I am running a second computer(Which will be my only computer when this is sorted) on Vista and I can not configure the Sagem dongle that I have been using with my XP computer.

I have the new software disc from Orange loaded on my Vista computer and it will go on line via the CAT 5 cable but not the dongle, do I need to buy a new dongle for Vista?

Regards,

Ian Rough.