Help with wireless internet

My parents moved into a furnished apartment this weekend and need to have their internet hooked up. The apt. came with a cable modem and a Linksys wireless router already hooked up for internet. My parents asked me to hook up their PC to the internet since they have no idea what to do. Since the PC is setup up in a different room than the Cable modem and router, we had to go the wireless route and I'm having a hard time getting it right.

The Router and cable modem were already hooked up in the other room. I bought a Netgear USB wireless network adapter, installed it in the PC and spent much of today trying to get it hooked up correctly. I can get access to the internet, but it seems to be connected to a different router and not the Linksys. Is this possible, could the adapter card be connecting to a neighbors' router instead of the Linksys?

My next question is, the Linksys router installation software keeps asking for a password during installation. The landlord said the password is already entered as the default. Either the password is wrong or there is no communication between the PC adapter card and the linksys router, because the installation software doesn't accept the password. Do the router and PC adapter card have to be synched up with a wired connection before going wireless???

Would any of the problems be helped if the wireless PC USB adapter card had been a linksys as well? Any help I can get would be greatly appreciated.

 

I would uninstall the Linksys software. That really only works well if the wireless adapter is a Linksys as well. Then reboot and let Windows find the wireless networks available. This will show you if more than one is being picked up.

Now does the router they have need a security code to allow you to access the web? If it does the landlord should have provided you with that.
When Windows shows you the available wireless networks it should tell you if they are open (unsecured) or need WEP or WPA security codes entered.

Sam

 

Thanks for the reply. I have since learned that I was accessing a neighbors router/network and that it's best to configure a router with a wired network connection.

Am I able to remove the wireless router from the cable modem in the other room, wire it to where the PC is currently located and then configure it? In other words, can I avoid moving the entire PC to the room the router is in, or would disconnecting the router mess things up?

 

Do you have to have wireless? If their computer is the only computer you don't need the router but you'd have to run a network cable from the cable modem to the computer (provided it has a wired network port on it).

If you have to use wireless then yes you should be able to just put the router in with the computer just to connect via network cable, configure the router then re-connect it to the cable modem.

Usual rule of thumb (once you get the router configured) is power everything off, connect router to modem, then turn on cable modem & let it sync up to cable co., then turn on router & let it sync up to modem then turn on computer and let it connect via the wireless.

Sam