Wireless NIC connects to neighbors router

I have a Compaq Presario SR1020nx, with a 2.80 ghz Intel Celeron processor, 1024 mb ram, 80 gb Ultra DMA hard Drive, running Windows XP home edition SP2. I have Ad-aware Se, Tweeknow, Hijackthis, and AVAST anti-virus. I have a Microsoft wireless PCI adapter MN-720 loaded. It connects to a LINKSYS BEFW11S4 wireless router. I am a secured system running WPA-PSK. The distance between the two is about 30 feet (basement to second floor bedroom). There are 5 wireless signals in my neighborhood, 2 of which are unsecured. My wireless NIC will connect to my neighbors unsecured network before it will connect to my secured system. MY signal strength in house is listed as "Very good" or "Good" and the signal strength to his router is "Low". Why does my NIC connect to his system, when my signal is stronger, and how can I stop it from doing that? Then, since I don't know who this neighbor is, is it possible to send him a "Broadcast" message to tell him to secure his router?

 

I had a similar problem. Actually the easiest thing to do is adjust the wirleess nic settings so it only connects to your wireless router, make sure you have some kine of encryption set up(I recommend setting a pass key) and you should be good to go. Read ALL the documentation on setting up the encryptions on ALL your wireless devices, before you adjust the settings. This will prevent you from connection to his wireless, and will protect yours as well.



Sorry I missed the part about your WPA-PSK, please disregard. But, you should be able to set your nic so it will only connect to your router. And your Nic probably is just going the easiest route, due to certain settings. For some reason the one I have kept trying to connect to my neighbors as well till I set it to only connect to my router

 

Tigerray,

How do I set my NIC so that it only connects to my Router? I have enable the MAC filtering, so I am not worried about anyone getting into my router.

Ist it possible to send "Him" a message to secure his system? My NIc, never attempts to connect to the 3 other "Secured" routers, only to the 2 unsecured.

Bill

 

It's easier to connect to an unsecured network as there is no pass key or encryption needed. Access the wireless nic settings in the utility that was installed with it if it was installed aftermarket. You chould be able to set a default connection to your router. If it came with the computer then you can right click the wireless icon on the taskbar and access the settings in there, if windows is set up to run the connection instead of the utility for that nic, then you should be able to have windows set your router as default also. When you look at all the wireless connection that are available, then you will need to access your router directly to get the info should be a number sort of like a serial number listed nest to the wireless connection names just find the one that is yours, and set it as default. This should make your nic connect to your router every time as long as it has the wpa-psk set up correctly.

 

Tigerray,

This will have to wait until I get home. I don't recall seeing any numbers next to the list of available networks othe than the SSID.

How do I send him a message to have him secure his network? Like a braodcast or something similar?

 

Open Notepad. Write a brief note asking him to secure his network. Save it to an empty folder, using the the name: "READ ME!.txt"

Close it, open the folder, right click on the text file and copy, then paste 100 copies of that "READ ME!.txt" into the folder. (ctrl+V)

Now, log onto his network, select all 100 of the copies of "READ ME!.txt" and put them onto his desktop.

Only sort of kidding...

 

Make sure your router is broadcasting the SSID, and that it is unique.

If using wireless zero, be sure that your network (only) is in the preferred list (lower half of the page) and that you do not have it allowed to connect to unsecured networks.

If that fails, consider getting a different wireless client. Boingo is free, works with many adaptors. Odyssey is not free but is extremely stable and rock-solid, only connecting to the network of your choice. There are probably others available too.

 

Why I see Wireless connections that are not mine in my Wireless Network display?
http://www.ezlan.net/faq.html#signal