# Password needs to be 40bits or 104bits???



## ryke

Hi All,

I have a wireless setup at home using a D-Link DIR 635. I have 3 laptops connected to it, and they all work fine, but my sister recently gave me her old laptop a LG LS50a and when I try to connect it to the network I keep getting this error message "The network password needs to be 40bits or 104bits depending on your network configuration. This can be entered as 5 or 13 ascii characters or 10 or 26 hexadecimal characters." The network key I keep entering is correct, and I'm unsure as to why it is not accepting the password??? It's got me stumped. The laptop is running XP SP1, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys in advance. 

p.s The password I have setup on the router is a WAP2 type.


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## TerryNet

"... old laptop ..."
"... XP SP1 ..."
"... WAP2 type ..."

WAP2 is maybe the very new WPA2 encryption? Old laptop implies that the wireless adapter is far too old to support WPA2 (which requires different hardware than WEP and WPA require). XP SP1 lacks a great many networking, especially wireless, fixes and improvements.

So, at a minimum you need to get that beast updated to SP2 and make sure the latest driver for the wireless adapter can support WPA.

I expect that you then will still need to back off your router to WPA or else get a new adapter that supports WPA2.


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## ryke

Thanx for your reply. Sorry I did mean WPA2. I had a feeling that the computer was just way too old. Is there any major security concerns between WPA and WPA2? I live in an apartment, and get shaped after I've reached my download limit, so I don't want anyone being able to piggyback off my network. 

Thanx again


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## JohnWill

WPA or WPA2 both provide excellent security, use whichever one is supported by all your hardware. Remember, 20 random characters and numbers or more for the WPA/WPA2 key, and you're quite secure.


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