Aaagh! Any ideas how I can stop my laptop 'forgetting' the data for my wireless connection?

[nickytwotimes]

Dear Lord, it has been going on since August. I have spent time on the phone to bt but they are shite.

Connection signal is great, but when I power down then back up agian, it shows my BT Hub as being encrypted agian. It is fine when I hibernate it, but obviously Ineed to power down for updates etc.
I have tried all the standard bt 'solutions' (ha, ha) but to no avail. I've just sent them a stinking email of complaint, but I would love to solve this problem.

Any clever IT types?

I'd be ever so grateful.

I've got to pop off for a bit, but will be back later to see if anyone has any ideas or to bump!

BT tends to take more attention if you phone the accounts department and start asking for refunds for poor service. I went as far to complain to Oftel over one isue and that had no effect.

That sounds like Vista. It has some weird oddities with wifi. Our vista laptop occasionally can't find our network because I hide the SSID.

Do you mean the laptop forgets the security password for your connection? Or just fails to automatically re-connect on power up?

Thanks for the reply.
Yes, Vista indeed, although it was fine with out old Belkin router.
It finds the connection okay, but it comes up as encrypted so I have to run the installation disk every flaming time.

What is the SSID?

Good tip about the accounts department.

SSID is essentially the name of the network, for a BT hud it will probably be something like BTHomeHub-XXXX

Somewhere on the hud itself or the packaging will probably be a SSID written and hopefully the security key/passphrase as well (O2 units usefully have those details on a label on the base).

If you can find the key/passphrase you should be able to connect using the Vista wifi tool. If you try to connect to an encrypted network it will just ask you for the key/passprase.

You don't want to be setting your network to unencrypted unless you don't mind sharing it.

There is a school of thought that says having an unencrypted network is 'a good thing' as it fits well with the open-source mentality. "It's the internet, and the internet is a good thing, so I will share".

I quite like this attitude, but if you choose to do this, please make sure your pcs don't have too much information available on drives shared around the network.

And make sure you change the admin password on your router to something really difficult to guess (like Mum5n3T or something )

It's a nice school of thought, however the issue that I would have with having an open connection is that there is always someone who would misuse your connection.

I mean, horror or horrors, someone might download illegal MP3's and then the RIAA sues you for billonz and billionz of $$$

An open connection was probably why OP was able to connect with the Belkin. Belkins and Linksys seem to default to fully open in factory defaults (well the ones I've had did). But I think the new BT HUB defaults to secure.

Thanks for the input guys.

I am still waiting for BT to respond.

Don't really fancy having my hub unencrypted - too much of a worrier.