Networks Wireless Networking Woes

I'm really new to networking and I was wondering if you guys could help me out with setting up a wireless network. Primarily, I just want to be able to access the internet from any of the network computers, but accessing my files would be nice also. First off, I have two computers in my office that are hooked up to a Belkin router which is connected to a cable modem. I have a D-Link DWL-650 wireless card for my laptop that is running Windows 98. I realize that the card requires 98se, but as far as I know, there are not many differences, except in the way of usb support. So, here's my layout.

Code:

 _________________
| Computer 1      |
|[u] Windows XP Home [/u]|       ________________________
        |________________| Belkin Wireless Router |
 _______|________        |[u] DWL-650                [/u]|
| Computer 2     |                   .
|[u] Windows XP Pro [/u]|                   .
                                     .
                                     .
                                     .
                                     .
                               ______._____
                              | Laptop     |
                              |[u] Windows 98 [/u]|

* | represents cat5 transmission
* . represents wireless transmission

 

Um... what exactly is the question? I mean if you have internet access on the laptop, then isn't it a network? If you can't get the card working, then Make sure the encryption settings are the same, frequency, etc.

 

Sorry, last night I had to run out and didn't get to finish my post. The problem that I'm having is that I can't access the internet on my laptop even though I can see my router on the network software that D-Link provided.

 

Have you checked all the settings and ensured that the networking protocols to share a connection like that from a router are supported in Win98? I suspect that it's not, and you'll need to upgrade to at least SE - it's not particularily expensive to do this, that's if you can't find a copy in a non-legitimate way

 

I've had so much trouble trying to get it to work on 98 that I'm just gonna upgrade it over to 2000. I'll probably need some more help then.

 

What model of D-Link wireless card do you have for your laptop? I bought a D-Link wireless G router the other night and had nightmarish issues trying to get it set up correctly and bought a D-link wireless PCI card that D-link recommends for the that specific router. The manual says you can use you're pci card with default settings with my router. That was not the case. I was on the phone with D-Link tech support for about 2 hours trying to figure out what was wrong and finally after my call was escalated to a supervisor(who was apparently pissed off that he had to actually take a call) got my computer connected, but it would lose the connection after about 5 minutes and then finally wouldn't even connect anymore. Not to mention when it was connected, it was like dial-up speed for 1.5Mbs broadband, with a 70% signal strength. Tech support told me to just exchange the card. I think maybe their products are lacking a little in the quality department. I'm gonna exchange the card but with a different brand.

Sorry to rant in your post but I think maybe the problem is not solely with your OS.


*PS- Please don't flame me for my bitter mood this morning.

 

I've never purchased any kind of networking equipment before, so maybe you're right about d-link quality. I'll get 2000 installed here sometime soon and then see where that leaves me.

 

After a long vacation from the problem, I'm attempting to work on it again. I've got win2k installed now and the wireless card installed, but it's not finding the network. The SSID and channel are the same.