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I connect to the Internet with Cricket Wireless Broadband on my desktop. How can I connect a second computer, my laptop, to maximize my Internet experience?

Cricket Wireless

Cricket Wireless Broadband is a little bit different than some of the other wireless broadband services that I’ve encountered. Rather than having a broadband modem that you connect to your home’s network or to the computer itself, Cricket Wireless uses a small USB device that installs directly to your computer or laptop. The tag line for Cricket says “Plug in. Click. Connect.” After viewing the Cricket Wireless demo, it looks like it really is that simple: plug in, click a few installation buttons, and connect wirelessly to the Internet.

However, this doesn’t lend itself to Internet connection sharing as well as some of the more traditional broadband services such as cable modems. In a cable modem situation, you’d connect the modem to a wired or wireless router and then you could connect multiple computers to the router, all of which can then access the Internet via the shared modem.

Options for Sharing Cricket Wireless

It looks as though you must activate your computer for use with the Cricket device which makes sense. What’s not clear is whether the Cricket device can be used on several computers. For example, I have a “Rhapsody to Go” MP3 player that I can use with three different computers. Each computer must be registered on my account. Once registered, I can connect the device to any of the three computers and download unlimited music to the device. I imagine that a similar feature is offered with the Cricket Wireless modem.

Here’s what I would try. Since your PC is already established, try removing the Cricket modem and installing it on your laptop. When prompted to activate the laptop, does a message appear? What does it say? It might say something like, “You must first deactivate your desktop computer” which would mean that the modem only allows one computer on the account. On the other hand, if the message says something like, “Activating second computer, one license remaining” then you could go ahead with the installation and then swap out the modem depending on which computer you want to use at any given time. Since Cricket advertises that you can take your Cricket wherever you go, I would assume that you’d be able to install it on both devices. In fact, one of the site’s FAQs says that “you can take your Internet with you from your home desktop to your laptop at the park.”

Hopefully, swapping the modem back and forth will work for you. If you want both the desktop and the laptop to connect at the same time, you may be able to share the modem over your home network or use a USB hub.

I am trying to enable wireless on my laptop. I have Intel PROSet Wireless Manager. I have switched to wireless on but it tells me I will need to activate the switch on my hardware in order for wireless to be available! This means nothing to me?!

Intel PROSet Wireless Manager

The Intel PROSet Wireless Manager is a type of software that allows you to manage your wireless connections. When your laptop’s wireless card is turned on, the card will detect wireless signals and the Intel PROSet Wireless Manager will display a list of available wireless networks. Within the software is a dropdown option for turning the wireless on and it sounds as if you have done that step. However, your wireless card must also be turned on.

The Wireless On/Off Switch

If your wireless card is built into the laptop, then your laptop will have an on/off switch for the wireless card. The ability to turn wireless on and off gives you greater security and it is often recommended that you turn off the wireless when connected to a wired network due to conflicts and interference.

These switches are usually quite tiny! On my Toshiba, the switch is located on the front “lip” area, near the inputs for the microphone and headset. A tiny icon that is supposed to look like an antenna identifies this switch as being for the wireless. In this case, the switch slides from on to off. When on, an orange light glows ever so slightly.

On my husband’s Sony VAIO laptop, the wireless switch is located in the upper right corner of the laptop, just above the keyboard. In this case, it’s a small button. As you can imagine, different laptops will feature the wireless on/off switch in different configurations, so you’ll need to search your laptop for this tiny switch.

Wireless Keyboard Commands

In addition to a physical on/off switch, your laptop may have a keyboard button that enables or disables your wireless connection. This could be any one of the F keys. For example, some Lenovo laptops use the Fn + F2 key combination to enable or disable wireless while my Toshiba uses the Fn + F8 key combination.

Most likely, your computer will have a wireless on/off switch that simply needs to be turned to the on position.  

I have a laptop and PC; they are both wireless. I have access to Internet Explorer from the laptop but I do not have access to Internet Explorer from the PC! I have checked with Virgin Media and they have confirmed that there is not any problem with their connection and the problem is from PC. Is there someone there to help me to sort out my problem? Thanks!

Troubleshooting Internet: Setting up Home Wireless Network

In order for both the PC and the laptop to be able to access the Internet, you need to have a home network set up. This consists of a broadband Internet connection, a wireless router, wireless network cards or network adapters for both the laptop and the PC. That’s the easy part. Next, you need to configure everything so that you can access the Internet. Have you checked to make sure that you set up the configuration of the router properly? Since you are getting Internet to the laptop, I am going to assume that it is set up correctly.

Troubleshooting Internet: Wireless Network Adapter

Since all computers do not include wireless network adapters, is the network adapter for the PC compatible with its operating system? Without a compatible network adapter, you aren’t going to gain access to the Internet. The best type for a PC is the USB wireless network adapter. It just slips right into an available USB port. If that is what you are using, then check it to see if it is plugged in securely. Even if it is just slightly askew, it can prevent you from connecting to the Internet.

Troubleshooting Internet Access: Connect the Computer

Are you receiving any type of message at all on the PC such as “Wireless Network Connection is available” or something similar? Typically, you will see some message to indicate that your computer has access or can gain access to the Internet. Do you see the small icon in the system tray in the lower right-hand corner of the screen? If you hover over it with the mouse, does it tell you what your signal strength is? If you right-click on the icon, it will generate an option to “View Available Wireless Networks.” If the icon isn’t there, then perhaps the computer hasn’t been configured properly to connect. If this is the case, make sure that you have installed the wireless network adapter card and connected the computer properly. The adapter should have come with instructions that prompted you once you inserted the card the first time. If this did not happen, you can try two things. First, select the option to “Refresh Network List.” Second, take the card out and try the process again.

Additional Tips for Wi-Fi Troubleshooting

Strategy 1: In some cases, having your Internet Explorer home page set to blank creates a problem connecting to wireless Internet. If you can, use an Ethernet cable to connect your PC to the router, open your IE browser, and set the home page to one of the websites that you frequent.

Strategy 2: Change your location. All too often, a wireless connection won’t work properly due to the distance between the router and the computer. Plus, the greater number of obstacles you have in the way such as walls, floors, large furniture, the more likely it is for you to have trouble accessing the Internet.

Strategy 3: Restart the service with these instructions:

1. Click on Start.
2. Open the Control Panel.
3. Select Performance and Maintenance.
4. Select Administrative Tools.
5. Select Services.
6. Select the option “Wireless Zero Configuration” on the right-hand side.
7. Select Stop the Service.
8. Select Start the Service.

I won’t have Internet temporarily, but I want to keep a Virtual LAN connection over my two computers. I have a USB-USB Bridge Cable by APC. I lost the installation disk, so I downloaded the software and installed it on both of my Windows XP Media Center 2005 computers. My eMachines computer worked fine with it, but my HP computer had problems. The software installed but it doesn’t show up. The Windows pinged three times of the same tone, instead of pinging twice with the first tone being lower than the next. Can you please tell me if I’m using the wrong software or if I need to update or download anything?  I also have software called PCLinq2 which I can only used to file share but using it as a Virtual LAN would be nice.

From everything you’re saying it sounds like it is isolated to a problem with the USB port that you are using on the HP computer. Are you getting any kind of a “USB Device not Recognized” error? Are you sure that the USB port is working properly? Can you use another device successfully such as a mouse? If you are sure it is working, there are a few things you can do to try to get the computer to recognize the cable.

Windows XP will often not recognize a USB device that has been attached while the computer was in standby or hibernate mode. Have you tried to restart the computer and then plug the USB cable in?

Device Manager

You can try to get the cable recognized in Device Manager. Go to Start and then Run. In the box, type in: Devmgmt.msc and click OK. The Device Manager window will open. You should select your computer as the location for the scan. Find the Action menu and choose “Scan for hardware changes”. Close Device Manager and see if the USB cable is now recognized.

If not, you can try to disable power management in Device Manager. Get into Device Manager as you did above. Expand: Universal Serial Bus controllers. Right click a USB Root Hub then choose Properties. Click on the Power Management tab. Clear the check by “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”. Click OK. You will have to repeat this for each USB hub that is listed. Now go to the Action tab and choose “Scan for hardware changes”.

PCLinq is also a good networking program. On the web, Prolific.com has the PCLinq drivers you need. I’m not sure about the three beeps on your HP, as three beeps usually indicates that there is something wrong with the RAM - you haven’t touched that have you? Not sure that the two issues are related.

If you aren’t successful in getting the USB cable to work, you can also investigate networking the computers using crossover cable on the network cards. I won’t go into how to do this here because it is a little long for this article, but if you need help with that, please let us know.

How do I find the WEP code?

A WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) code is like a house key - you can easily get a copy of your own, but you can’t get one for somebody else’s house. These wireless router keys are there for a reason - to keep other people from accessing a wireless system. Many people don’t have their WEP keys when they need it to fix their router for some reason. Luckily, it is easy to find the key for your system by logging onto the router gateway.

IP Address

First, you need to have the IP address that will allow you access to your router gateway. This may be in your manual or you can use the default for your brand. For example, Linksys routers, use 192.168.1.1 for their internal IP address. D-Link and Netgear routers usually use 192.168.0.1. Some US Robotics routers use 192.168.123.254, and some SMC routers use 192.168.2.1.

Router Gateway

Once you have that number, go to Internet Explorer and type that IP number in the address bar. Don’t put www in front of it - just type in the number. We’ll use Linksys as our example and put 192.168.1.1 in the address bar. This will bring you to the Linksys gateway. You will be asked for a Username - leave that blank. The password is: Admin (unless you changed it). Now go to wireless and then on wireless security. You will see a page with the WEP listed. You will probably see about three numbers, use the first one.

Although these directions are for Linksys, they are usually the same or quite similar for all makes of router. If leaving the username field blank doesn’t work for you, you can try putting in Admin for both the Username and Password.

Hopefully this worked for you and you are back in business. If you need any additional help, please let us know.

I purchased a Cricket wireless broadband. I installed the disc. When I try to connect to the Internet, I keep getting this message: the remote computer did not respond: HELP!

Troubleshooting Broadband Connection Problem: Operating System

Is your operating system compatible with this service? Check to make sure that it is before you continue troubleshooting. Cricket Broadband Wireless Internet is compatible with the following operating systems: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Mac OS 10.3.9 or higher.

Troubleshooting Broadband Connection Problem: Installation

I’m assuming that you followed the installation wizard provided on the disk in order to install Cricket Wireless. There should have been a prompt to activate it as well. Did the prompt appear and did you activate the service? If not, then you need to do so before it will function properly and allow you to connect. This is actually one of the most common reasons for problems with Cricket Wireless and it is easy to solve. Just follow these directions to do so:

• Look for the “Cricket Broadband” icon that should be on the desktop. (If it is not there, then the installation was faulty, and you should start over.) If the icon is visible, then you need to click on it to generate a new window asking you to click on “Yes” to activate the service.
• Click on the “Connect” button in the new window for the Cricket Broadband Connection Manager. You should now be connected.

If you completed each of the above steps and you are still having problems, try reinstalling the software to fix the problem.

Troubleshooting Broadband Connection Problem: Windows Vista and Modem Compatibility

For those computers using Windows Vista in the 64-bit version, special complications arise. The Cricket USB modem is not compatible with Vista 64 bit. Therefore, if this is your operating system, then you will not be able to use Cricket Wireless Broadband.

Troubleshooting Broadband Connection Problem: System Requirements

In order for you to be able to use Cricket Wireless Broadband, you need to have certain system specifications on your computer. Please check that it meets the following specifications:

• Minimum 128 MB RAM
• Minimum 32 MB Free Hard Drive Space
• USB port (slot type A)

Troubleshooting Broadband Connection Problem: Additional Tips

If your wireless connection does not seem to be working, even after trying the above tips, try the following:

• Clear the temporary Internet cache.
• Check to see if you have sufficient memory.
• Contact the company directly.