Ok guys,

I am having issues getting my Airport Express to create a wireless network. I live in the University Apartments and we have tamulink wifi but my Xbox 360 will not connect to a wpa network so last semester I used an airport express to create my own wireless network. It worked fine for a semester but now the DHCP server will not give my airport express an ip address.

Has anyone had a similar issue? I know some dorms still don't have wifi so I was wondering how people got around that.
Also I can't plug my Xbox in to the Ethernet port because we don't have an Ethernet port in the living room.

TIA

I think you have two options, not sure if either will work, but they are

1) Load DD-WRT onto your router, or another, and you should be able to then use it as a WIFI access point
2) Use your computer to connect to TAMU link through wifi, and then share that internet connection through your ethernet port by probably bridging your wifi with your ethernet and running a regular cable. I don't think you'll need a crossover cable for this situation.

Try googling either of those two solutions and you should be able to get detailed instructions. I was able to share a wifi connection with my buddy's desktop computer once, and I think I did it by bridging connections on WinXP. Not sure about Win7 or Vista. Hope that helps.

Unless something has changed here recently, TAMU doesn't allow you to connect a "router" to their network (wireless or wired), including the dorms. The only thing that is allowed is a simple dummy switch. Basically anything that creates its own network and assign internal IP addresses is banned.

Thanks guys!

Big truck guy, I dont know what your first suggestion is. I have never heard of DD-WRT. I also tried #2 but the airport express does not join networks with WPA-enterprise security. (same problem as the 360)

It turnes out the ethernet port in my room is broken. I dont know why but when I plugged my Airport Express into the jack in my roommates room it connected and asked me to register my computer with Tamulink. After that I moved the router back to my room and it works fine... I have no idea why this works but it did.

AgProgrammer, Yeah TAMU does not technically allow routers to be connected to the network. But unofficially, I have been told by the tech people that if you hide the SSID and have the connection encrypted, they wont bother trying to get you to take it down.

There are more ways than just detecting the SSID to tell if it's a router. When I was with TAMU IT, it was all based off detecting multiple MAC addresses (multiple devices) on a single port through only one TAMU IP address (since the router hands out its own addresses). If that was detected, they would shut down that port.

Hopefully you are just dealing with a bad connection. If it keeps happening, I might suspect something on their end is ending the connection. You could always to just use a wireless access point instead of a wireless router. That would act just like a dummy wired switch.

[This message has been edited by AgProgrammer (edited 1/16/2012 3:26a).]

DD-WRT is an alternative firmware for your router. It allows you to do more stuff with your router than stock firmware allows. It doesn't support all routers, but you can google them and go to their website and see what all devices are supported.

For my second suggestion, google "Internet Connection Sharing." It allows you to use your computer as a router. My buddy did it while we were in the dorms. He left his computer connected via ethernet, and then used his wifi to allow him to move about the dorm and still have internet by creating an ad-hoc wireless network. You should be able to do the same if your computer has wifi. You can either connect your computer to tamulink and use a hardline to connect your xbox to your computer, or you can use a hardline in your room and then create an ad-hoc wireless network. Either should work. Just google them and you should be able to find plenty of guides online, and probably some youtube videos showing you how to do it.

A Linksys WGA600N or something similar should work, right?

TAMU IT doesn't generally like more than one device per port.

The security holes that can be created can potentially open the networks up to intrusion.

When a router or a WAP is detected on the network they generally just shut that physical port down. Sometimes you'll even have to have them come out and see that the offending device has been removed before it will be turned back on.

When I lived in the dorms last year, we didn't have wifi in appelt so I only had one connection in my room. It wasn't a problem because I tethered my cell to my laptop so myps3 used the lone connection.

My original ps3 connected easily and had no problems. Then I bought a new one that wouldn't connect, so I talked to the help desk and they told me to buy a router. I wasn't allowed to use it for wifi, but I could connect my ps3 to it and it worked. Not sure if this would work in your case, but this is what I had to do last year.