I don't remember enabling it, but I haven't upgraded my router in..wow, probably 5 years, at least. So it's probably something I turned on when we first hooked it up and then forgot about.

My parent's linksys can be adminned wirelessly out of the box. So can my Airport Express, but that seems like a necessity what with it only HAVING wireless.

Kristin, what IP address is the router giving your computer? Usually if you take your served IP and change the last number to "1" then you get admin. E.g. the Airport Express serves 10.0.0.xxx IPs, and 10.0.0.1 is it's admin IP.

Gris, here's what I've got.

When I try to join my mini-network via linksys, the computer claims to remember the WEP password but then tells me that the connection failed.

Using the Ethernet,
IP address = 172.16.1.47
Subnet Mask = 255.255.0.0
Router = 172.16.0.1

This is an educated guess, but the fact that:

IP address = 172.16.1.47
Subnet Mask = 255.255.0.0

sounds to me like your Mac isn't getting the correct IP address from the router (via DHCP) so it's just assigning its own IP address and subnet mask. Both of my Mac laptops would do that when they didn't get stuff via DHCP and/or the signal was too weak. A subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 is not what one would generally use on a small network - 255.255.255.0 would be far more likely.

Also, 172.16.1.47 sounds like a "real" internet IP address, and not one like 192.168.0.1 like you'd see on a local network.

eta: Have you tried restarting the router?

Yes, I agree with tommy. Something's screwy with the DHCP on your Linksys.

If I were in your shoes, I'd use the hard reset button on the router to put all settings to default and rebuild them.

eta: that is, after I did what tommy suggests. Unplug and replug!

Unplug and replug!

I had a router (I'm not sure if it's Linksys) where the DHCP was just wonky. It'd work on my MacBook but not for my TiVo. Then it stopped working for my MacBook too, and I had to specify a fixed IP address, etc, for using it at home.

That's one reason I got the new Time Capsule, as I was planning on replacing my router anyway....

I don't understand enough about this stupid system to fix it, and I can't go to IT or they will tell me I shouldn't be using my personal mini-network (despite the fact that the school wireless barely reaches my classroom). What ND helped me to do is to hook the linksys into the ethernet for the school, and then we locked that little network so students couldn't jump onto it.

It worked fine until today when I came in with the new laptop. Like I said, it remembers a WEP password, yet the one it remembers appears to no longer be true.

Argh - how frustrating.

I'd love to help you out more, but I gotta run to a Dr. appt....

Sorry, didn't mean to take over the tech thread. Thanks for all the help, everyone!