Is there a WPA expert in the house?

I can't get my (new) Hawking PCI network adaptor to work with it. I'm using WPA-PSK, and I want to use a robust pass phrase, and I do in my D-Link DI-524 router (34 characters), but when I enter it into the client, it lops off everything after the first eight characters. And even when I shorten the phrase to eight characters on the router to get it to match, it still doesn't work. The options that I have on the PCI adaptor are WPA2 and "Any WPA," and I have the same problem with both of them. I'd really like to get a wireless network going here, but I don't trust WEP. (Note, it works fine unencrypted.)

Does anyone have any thoughts?

This is going to be a little vague, and I apologize for that, but I don't have a router in front of me to give more specifics.

Somewhere in the configuration of the client software there should be an option to set the key size in bits. I vaguely remember this from a Hawking USB adapter but it's 600 miles away so I can't look it up for you.

Toss the D-Link and get a Linksys

:)

Dennis

Limit the connections to MAC addreses and dump the WPA and WEP.

Why? It's too easy for a blackhat to sniff out and spoof a MAC address, leaving you no other line of defense...

You definately need WPA, MAC limitting in not sufficient. There is probably a way to bypass the passphrase and enter the hex code directly. I had a problem on older equipment where the hex code generated for a given password differed between systems.

Another thing to look into, I ran into it last year. If using a robust code, or strong password, make sure that your router and your card are both set to the same encryption...128bit...64bit...whatever. Those things are supposed to check and validate, but sometimes they choke of the encryption strength.

Mac

When you say it lops off the characters to 8 digits are you counting the astericks or can you still see the actual code that you typed in? Cause its not uncommon for a client application when you enter a secure code it will truncate the information entered into the field and turn it to astericks. The true value of the field is still set its just the information is masked not only in detail but in length as well.

I would make sure your router firmware is of the latest version. I know they have been sniffing lots of bugs out of WPA and if you just bought the wireless adapter you might be on a different revision supported by the wireless adapter then the one currently being implemented in the router.

That and I've found that buying the same brand router and wireless adapter is the best bet in terms of capability.