Solved

[mr-gq]

so i just got my dell 1525 (Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini-Card) and i have a linksys wrt54gl router.

the laptop sees the connection but when i click on it and enter my passkey and it doesn't connect to the router but instead gives me an error.

router is set to wpa personal.

any suggestions on what i should try ?

[darius_m5]

What error do you get?
Check your passphrase, make sure the cases are right.
Otherwise update to the latest driver from dell, then try again.

Also, try using the Dell Wireless utility (if you have one). If you tried that, then use the Windows utility.

[mr-gq]

i've updated to the most recent driver for the wifi card already. the error i get is that it says the passkey does not match. i don't know why because i can connect with my iphone with no problem using the same passkey.

[darius_m5]

i've updated to the most recent driver for the wifi card already. the error i get is that it says the passkey does not match. i don't know why because i can connect with my iphone with no problem using the same passkey.

Majority of wireless issues happen before or after you enter the passphrase or wep key. So this is a weird situation.
Are there non-alphanumeric characters in your passphrase?

This is how I would make my Passphrase (not my real one :)) : D4rIu5_P455pHr4sE_f0r_RfD
I'm paranoid of aircrack WPA2 database attacks, so I keep my passphrase long.

[mr-gq]

yes, but they are all lower case, so there should be no problems with anything being case sensitive.

also, i don't know if it matters but one computer is on vista home premium and one is on vista home basic.

[darius_m5]

yes, but they are all lower case, so there should be no problems with anything being case sensitive.

But are there any symbols?

[mr-gq]

no, just letters and numbers.

[darius_m5]

Hmmm, how up to date is the Windows? SP3, SP2? There was a wpa hotfix for the older XP to make it compatible with wpa.

[mr-gq]

both are on vista. one is vista home premium the other is vista home basic. sp1 on both i believe.

[ipxxx]

I think by default wireless connections are set to use WEP automatically

Go to the following

Start > Settings > Network Connections > Right click your wireless connection > Properties > Wireless Networks > Click on your preferred networks and click Properties...

Is the Network Authentication set to Open and Data encryption set to WEP? If so this needs to be changed to WPA then try connecting again and enter your passwords

[mr-gq]

its wpa. the weird thing is that it now works. i logged into the router and changed my passkey. entered it and its now working. not sure why the old passkey didn't work.

but thanks for the help fellas.