Wireless machine not showing up control panel

[Kungfucious]

Hi all,

I Have 2 laptops which connect to my wireless router (DG834G), both running XP and an Xbox360. Both laptops seem to connect propperly though one machine, an IBM thinkpad does not show up in the list of attached devices.

The same is true for my wirelessly connected Xbox360. They do not show up in the list of connected devices though they both work perfectly. I would like to find out if there are other devices (ie. my neighbours) connected to my network without my knowledge (my internet connection has become very slow lately).

Is there a simple way of identifying every machine connected to my outgoing connection?

regards

KF

Pleas

[killer_cow]

Originally Posted by Kungfucious

Is there a simple way of identifying every machine connected to my outgoing connection?

Hey there,

Your best bet is to use your router's logging capabilities... now unfortunately I havn't used your particular model of router before, but usually in a section called something like STATUS, SYSTEM or ADVANCED there should be an option to view/enable/configure a log of events carried out by the router. What you can try to do is have a look at this log and look for any DHCP requests for Computer Names you don't recognise.

Unfortunately this requires any potential "thieving twat" to be using DHCP to pick up the IP address for his machine.. but its possible to just type in IP information manually into your computer, which in that case the router wouldn't have to DHCP 'serve' you an IP address.. therefore not leaving any record in the log. :/

One great way of limiting access to your wireless network is to setup MAC Address Filtering which your router will have (it may be called Access Controlling or somthing along those lines [usually in the 'Advanced' section]) which will require you to type in each of your machine's unique MAC addresses into the router...
After this filtering is setup, it will prevent any machine with an unregistered MAC address gaining access to your network and internet.

Hope that helps,

KC