Connecting a Laptop to the Wireless Network
Connection Instructions

The Pigott building, home of the Albers School of Business and Economics, now has wireless access, as does our Bellevue Campus. The wireless network is part of the Seattle University campus-wide wireless network, and allows network access from all classrooms and common areas.

Required Materials

In order to connect a laptop to the wireless network you will need either a built-in wireless card, a PCMCIA wireless card that is 802.11b or 802.11g compliant. A PCMCIA card is about the size of a credit card and plugs into a slot on the side of a notebook computer. A variety of wireless PC Cards can be purchased from any computer retailer. Information Technology recommends purchasing major name-brand wireless network cards to avoid potential problems (such as US Robotics, Linksys, or 3Com).

Installing the PC Card (generic instructions for Windows operating systems prior to Windows XP):

You should have the installation CD for your operating system available before starting this procedure. [IMPORTANT] 

Please refer to the installation instructions that came with your wireless card before following these generic installation instructions. Some wireless cards may require the configuration software to be installed before the PC Card itself is installed.

1. Shut down the laptop if it is on. (Most notebooks allow you to insert and remove PC Cards while the computer is on, but installation is easier if it is off when you insert it for the first time.)

2. Locate a free PC Card slot on your laptop (usually on the side, near the back).

3. Insert the card firmly but gently into the slot until it locks into place.

4. Power on your laptop.

5. Windows will begin loading. You should see a New Hardware Found dialogue box. Windows does not come with drivers for most cards. When the card is detected, you will be presented with either a dialog box and three options or the Device Driver Wizard.

   • If you have the driver on a floppy disk or CD, insert the disk or CD in your floppy drive/CD drive and click OK, or Next, then Finish. This will load the proper driver on your system.

   • If you are prompted for the specific location of the driver, enter the appropriate drive letter in the Location box if the driver is on a disk. You may also be prompted to enter the location of your Windows 9x/2000/ME/XP install media (it may be on your Windows CD, or stored in C:\windows\options\cabs).

6. Install the wireless configuration software that came with your wireless PC Card. This will be required to configure your connection settings.

If you are using Windows XP your computer will automatically detect most hardware, and you should be able to use the built-in wireless configuration tools.

Software configuration

You will need a wireless configuration application, either provided by the hardware manufacturer, or the Wireless Zero Configuration (WZC) Service included in Windows XP.

Different manufacturers use various terms to describe aspects of wireless networking, but generally there are two options that will need to be configured:

• The network mode should be configured as Infrastructure or Access Point (not  Ad Hoc or Peer-to-Peer).

• The network name (or SSID) is SU_wireless. If your card has an option for 'ANY' you may want to leave it as is so you will be able to connect to different wireless networks in other locations.

• The wireless PC Card should be configured to renew it's IP address when connecting to this network, if this option is available.

The Seattle University wireless network is not encrypted, so Windows XP WZC service will not connect to it automatically. You will need to right-click the wireless network icon in the system tray, and click View Available Wireless Networks. Then highlight SU_wireless and click Connect - a warning will pop-up that the network is not secure, you need to click Yes in order to connect.

Logging on

Once you have a wireless network card installed and configured appropriately, simply open a web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox) and enter any valid URL.  Upon initial connection to the network, you will be redirected to a web-based authentication page that will allow you to logon (the logon account is your SU account).