Shared Knowledge

 

“Dlink DWL-G820 Gaming/Bridge Adapter”

 

12 June 2008

 

 

 

 

Needed a bridge adapter for a Slingbox and after looking at retail offerings, went with the Dlink DWL-G820.

 

Now perhaps as the short Dlink user manual says, if your existing wireless router network is set up using the default channel (6) and no security, the DWL-G820 will work right out of the box, but in my case, because of other wireless networks in my neighborhood, my Linksys router is set to use channel 10 for all wireless connections, so I had to configure the DWL-820.

 

Now Dlink provides instructions on configuring the DWL-G820 but I found them confusing and I spent a lot of time learning the following:

• Must connect the Dlink via an Ethernet cable directly to a PC to configure the Dlink. In my case, I use Windows-based PC's.

 

• To reset the Dlink to factory default settings, must unplug the Ethernet cable, and while Dlink is powered on, press and hold the Dlink reset button for a good 20 seconds. Then reconnect the Ethernet cable that goes to the attached PC. If at any time, you can not gain access to the firmware in the Dlink, you will have to reset it.

 

• To have access to any settings in the Dlink, in the attached PC, must open Network Connections in the control panel and enable LAN, if not enabled, and then right mouse click on LAN and select properties. In the properties window of the LAN, select TCP/IP and then click the properties button. Here you must change from "obtain IP address automatically" to defining a static IP address of 192.168.0.28. No other IP address will work. The subnet address will fill in automatically once you have entered the static IP address defined above and used the enter key. There is no need for a default gateway entry. Close the TCP/IP properties window and then the properties windows for the LAN connection.

 

• If you are using a laptop with a wireless card or built in wireless capability, go into Network Connections and select the wireless connection and disable it. You do this by highlighting the wireless connection, right mouse clicking on it and then selecting disable.

 

• On the desktop, click on Internet Explorer and in the URL definition box at the top, type in 192.168.0.35 and then strike the enter key. 192.168.0.35 is the factory default IP address of the Dlink DWL-820 and will gain you access to settings inside the Dlink. If when you strike the enter key, Dlink's admin's access window does not appear, you will have to check every step so far and in the worst case, do a hard reset on the Dlink unit.

 

• If you have set up the PC correctly and entered the correct, default, IP address of the Dlink in IE's URL window, a Dlink access window will now open and you enter admin in the password field and press enter. You will now have access to settings inside the Dlink with the first window showing a large button in the middle of the screen called "Wizard" and 3 smaller buttons in a panel on the left hand side of the screen.

 

• I manually configured the Dlink. First I clicked on the wireless button on the left hand side of the screen. The default setting of the Dlink is Ad Hoc (meaning connect directly to another computer and not a router) but I needed the Dlink to connect to my Linksys router. Unfortunately, when I clicked on the Infrastructure radio button, the ability to channel wireless channels was disabled!!! As I said above, my Linksys router uses channel 10 for wireless connections. So, instead of trying to set the channel number to 10 immediately, I clicked on the scan existing networks button and sure enough, up came a display of my Linksys router wireless network. On the left hand side of the Linksys router network was a radio button which I clicked, meaning that I wanted the Dlink to use this network. I then did a save operation by clicking on the save button at the bottom of the Dlink screen. After Dlink restarted, I had to enter the password again and was once again at the wireless configuration screen. On this screen, it now indicated that the network to be used was my Linksys wireless and even showed the correct channel number. At this point, all I did was to change from Ad Hoc to Infrastructure and my desired channel "stuck." Once again, I did a save operation on this configuration.

 

• Now from the main Dlink settings screen, I clicked on the LAN button on the left hand side of screen. It was here that I changed the IP address from static 192.168.0.35 to DHCP provided (meaning that my Linksys router would automatically provide an IP address for the Dlink) and supplied the "gateway" IP address of my Linksys wireless router (in my case 192.168.1.1). I then did a save and closed down the Dlink. Please note that I had to do this as my Linksys router has an IP range beginning from 192.168.1.2 and thus the default Dlink IP address would not work or ever be seen by the Linksys.

 

• Now please note that although one would think that if a power down was done on the PC, once booted, one would be able to go into IE and have access to the Internet. I do not know why, but I could never get Internet access via the Dlink while attached to a PC! However, I was able to open my Linksys router, go to Status and then to Wireless connections and finally DHCP clients and see the Dlink had been assigned a DHCP IP address.

 

 

With all settings inside the Dlink defined, I shut down the Windows PC, removed power from the Dlink and the Ethernet cable and move all to my Slingbox. Once connected there, after a Slingbox reset, Slingbox came up correctly via Slingplayer on my Windows PC.