Help me with these ipconfig/all details

I am staying at a hotel on a long business trip. The hotel has "wireless" . Sometimes it works fine, and sometimes not. The hotel mgr knows nothing about wireless, he just calls the people that set this up. They are 100 miles away. I have to tell him when the network is down. I am a pest I guess.

I am wondering if I can set up a router,access point or a cable modem in my room with the supplied info. I have two pc'c now using two seperate USB adapters. The router they use is 4 doors down the hall, d-link I think ? That is the closest to me

On a GOOD day these are my ipconfig/all settings

Connection-specific DNS suffiix : ..................this field is blank
Description:....................Siemens SpeedStream USB
Physical address.........00..xx.xx.xx.xx.xx
DHCP Enabled............Yes
Auto configuration Enabled......Yes

IP address.............10.10.xx.xxx
subnet mask..........255.255.0.0
default gateway..10.xx.xx.1
DHCP Server.......10.xx.xx.1
DNS Servers...10.xx.xx.xx.1
Lease Optained...a date
Lease expires....a date one day later

On a bad day these are the settings, totally differernt

Connection-specific DNS suffiix : THERE is a company named here
Description:...Siemens Speedstream
Physical address....00.xx.xx.xx.xx.xx
DHCP Enabled..Yes
Auto configuration Enabled...Yes

IP address...68.xx.xx.1
subnet mask.......255.255.240.0
default gateway....68.0.xx.x
DHCP Server....179.xx.xx.xx
DNS Servers......68.xx.xx.xx
68.xx.xx.xx
68.x.xx.xx
Lease Optained...a date
Lease expires . a date one day later

as you can see, many things are the same, BUT a few major changes and additions.

Have I found something useful to give me more bandwidth?
Or useless info to get me tossed from the hotel :-)

I do have a MS Wireless Base Station MN 500 here new on the floor
I do have cable TV coming in the room
I guess I was wondering if the router I have has a rj45 connector so I could get a splitter and be conected "direct", not having to depend on the signal 4 doors down
This is my first wireless experience

thanks all

on a 'bad day' have you tried walking closer to the router. does that fix the problem? if that doesn't fix the problem, then it may be their actual network going down, in which case there is nothing i can think of you could do. unless you fix their mis-configuration or make it more efficient

I can take the laptop down the hall yes for a better signal

I was wondering why the different settings on these :
IP address:
Subnetmask:
Default Gateway:
DNS Servers

and I get a named :
Connection-specific DNS suffiix

I was wondering If the info I was getting was "their" router info, their ISP info I was not supposed to get

thanks

It is possible, though a bit of a stretch, that they have multiple IP addressing schemes depending on which wireless access point you are actually getting your DHCP information from. Perhaps more likely is that a neighboring facility also has wireless capabilities, and on bad days you are getting your IP from them. The fact that neither of the sets of IP information that you have typed are from the Windows APIPA range leads me to believe that you are in fact always contacting a DHCP server. If you wanted to see about setting up your own access point, configure it to use DHCP, and hope that you get a 10.10.xxx.xxx address. You will probably have to configure NAT for each of your PCs to use that IP address to prevent IP conflicts - don't know if DHCP broadcasts would pass through your router/AP for each of them to get a legitimate IP.

i'm a little confused. you said earlier that the network goes down. does it go down, or can you just not use it? on the days that you thought it went down did you try going closer to the router and did it work?

At times the network does go down, all the way. NO connection. The computer over an over gets a 169.xx.xx.xx. in the IP address. That is when they call tech people 100 miles away.

The bad connection days happen like once a week. The IP address I get connected to is the one above starting with 68.0.00.0 etc. The bad days can be a few days, or a week.

When the connection is great, it always is a 10.10.10.101 connection or close

I knew this topic looked somewhat familiar.

Anyway, initially it looks like there are two wireless networks close to you. The time everything works and you're online you're probably connected to the hotel's network. The time when it doesn't your probably connected to another network...most likely a setup in another room, probably a guest -or- if there are buildings close to the hotel it could be from there.

What software is being used to manage the wireless adapter(s)? Is it Windows or the software that came with the adapter(s)? In either case look at the available wireless networks and see if more than one is showing. If there is, you can set the software to connect to the hotel network by default. I'm thinking right now it's configured to connect to any wireless network and it's pulling an IP from the first available or strongest signal.

The 169.xx.xx.xx address is the Windows Auto IP Address Configuration at work. When a network adapter is configured for DHCP, but a DHCP server is not available, Windows will auto assign an IP address starting with 169.

If what I stated in my previous post turns out to be true and there is more than one network close to you, when the "second" network (or computer) is turned off then you lose the IP address and the Auto IP Address Configuration kicks in, until the hotel's network is found and you connect to it.

I dunno, makes sense to me

If you run the CATV cable to your router it won't work. Where would you connect the cable? The CATV cable is not RJ45 and the router does not have a CATV connector on it. You would need a cable modem provisioned by the ISP.

Not sure if the MN 500 can be used as an access point. Need to read up on that.

I am using the windows xp home to manage my USB adapters..The MS utility and Siemens is not turned on
Siemens Speedstream
MS USB adapter.
When I did use the sw that came with the adapters, the only named SSID was the one where I am staying

I guess it is possible I am connecting to another wireless system..Next door is a food place.....not the type of place I would guess would be wireless, wrong atmoshere :-)
I did look at the manual on the MS mn-500, only ethernet type connectors, Alan you are right.
I guess I had a wireless newbie brainstorm and that I had new info to "hack" into the hotels and cable companies settings :-)
Hooking up direct :-)

Thanks all, I rebooted both pc's last night and they "connected" to the IP address I mentioned in the first post 10.xx.xx.x.........Not the 68.xx.xx.xx

I opened my Speedstream Utility and found only one BSID, the hotel where I am staying.

This hotel I know has about 4 routers 0r access point throughout the building, a few times I can see 3 or 4 listed, today only one appears. Sometimes I see one BSID called "default". Not today. I think "default"is channel 6, HOTEL has to be channel 7.

Under Wireless Network Connection Status, the support tab..the Activity in sent and recieve packets is in the 1000 range each. Many times when I connect, the recieved packets starts fast as in the 100,000 range soon.

Thanks everyone, so much to understand, this is interesting though