12 yr old pc

Imallrightjack

A friend of mine has a 12 yr old pc with win xp on it.eir have given him the new top of the range router and have told him its not compatible with xp and wi fi won't work.wi fi worked with the old router no problem.
All he wants is to be able to surf the net.in other words get wi fi working.plugging the router into pc isn't practical.
What are his options ?help would be really appreciated thanks.

Spear

Eir aren't exactly reliable to put it mildly.

What's the model of router?

Spear

I can't find any specific reference or reason to believe what Eir are claiming. The router supports 802.11b and g, plenty of those cards are around for WinXP.

Imallrightjack

Spear wrote: »

Eir aren't exactly reliable to put it mildly.

What's the model of router?

Its an eir f2000

Imallrightjack

Spear wrote: »

I can't find any specific reference or reason to believe what Eir are claiming. The router supports 802.11b and g, plenty of those cards are around for WinXP.

So he needs a wi fi card?is there any need or advantage to installing win 7?

Spear

If it's 12 years old, the hardware is most likely too weak for Win7.

But he can probably use his pre-existing wifi card just fine.

Imallrightjack

Spear wrote: »

If it's 12 years old, the hardware is most likely too weak for Win7.

But he can probably use his pre-existing wifi card just fine.

Yes it worked before.i just thought the new router might be to high tech for the win xp os.

Spear

Imallrightjack wrote: »

Yes it worked before.i just thought the new router might be to high tech for the win xp os.

It's still the same network standards and protocols, they haven't changed.

Imallrightjack

Spear wrote: »

It's still the same network standards and protocols, they haven't changed.

Ok great ill go and have a look at it in person and see what i can do.Thankyou for your help.i wonder why eir said it wasn't compatible with xp.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Imallrightjack wrote: »

Ok great ill go and have a look at it in person and see what i can do.Thankyou for your help.i wonder why eir said it wasn't compatible with xp.

Because they haven't a clue! :rolleyes:

However, his machine is likely to be very exposed to nasties on the internet. If he has anything of value (photos, documents, etc.) on it, he should ensure he has a good backup, ideally on an external hard drive, that is only plugged into the PC when a backup is being taken with a second version stored off-site or up in the cloud somewhere (in case of fire/flood at his home).

eddhorse

Probably covering themselves for some holes in his OS alright.

Maybe his 12 year old pc has no wifi card?
Maybe its a 802.11ac 5Ghz router but should be backwards compatible with 2.4Ghz and 802.11bg.
Maybe his network card only supports WEP security instead of a more secure WPA2 PSK.

Lots of maybes.

Spear

They claimed it was the router, rather than the wifi card. Maybe there's some small catch that's their grounds for this. But I'd expect that to have cropped up before, that router has been around for years, but there's nothing. Or it's just Eir being lazy and cheap and using this claim as an excuse to reduce their support coverage, or just their usual dishonesty and incompetence.

chrismon

Can your friend use an Ethernet connection?
Or buy a cheap wireless extender and plug that into the router?

Imallrightjack

chrismon wrote: »

Can your friend use an Ethernet connection?
Or buy a cheap wireless extender and plug that into the router?

Well its not practical to use an Ethernet connection.router and pc are far apart.as for the wireless extender ill suggest it .ill try and get wi fi working as is for the moment.

Johnboy1951

Imallrightjack wrote: »

A friend of mine has a 12 yr old pc with win xp on it.eir have given him the new top of the range router and have told him its not compatible with xp and wi fi won't work.wi fi worked with the old router no problem.
All he wants is to be able to surf the net.in other words get wi fi working.plugging the router into pc isn't practical.
What are his options ?help would be really appreciated thanks.

Try the new modem/router and if you fail to connect then replace the old one until you sort out a solution.

The new one does not HAVE to be used.

They sent me out a F1000 recently, but I won't be using it as it does not have functions that my old modem/router has, so it is of no practical use to me.
I will continue to use my old device.

Imallrightjack

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Try the new modem/router and if you fail to connect then replace the old one until you sort out a solution.

The new one does not HAVE to be used.

They sent me out a F1000 recently, but I won't be using it as it does not have functions that my old modem/router has, so it is of no practical use to me.
I will continue to use my old device.

He told me when the guy delivered the new one he demanded to take the other one away for recycling.so using the old one isn't an option as he doesn't have it unfortunately.

Johnboy1951

Imallrightjack wrote: »

He told me when the guy delivered the new one he demanded to take the other one away for recycling.so using the old one isn't an option as he doesn't have it unfortunately.

Ridiculous situation.

-l-Z3k3-l-

To be honest...your buddy should not be using XP. Simple as that.
And a 12yr old machine hasn't a hope of running 7 comfortably

Considering how insanely cheap it is to pick up an old Dell 780 or something similar with Win7 on it, I'd go this route
He'll have a secured patched OS and a slightly faster machine for very little investment.

On XP hes opening himself to a myriad of problems

Johnboy1951

-l-Z3k3-l- wrote: »

To be honest...your buddy should not be using XP. Simple as that.
And a 12yr old machine hasn't a hope of running 7 comfortably

Considering how insanely cheap it is to pick up an old Dell 780 or something similar with Win7 on it, I'd go this route
He'll have a secured patched OS and a slightly faster machine for very little investment.

On XP hes opening himself to a myriad of problems

No more than he had with the old router.

There are a lot of old eir routers knocking about for free ..... if the new one does not work (unlikely) then just get a replacement old one

eddhorse

You could use a powerline adapter to get the ethernet connection closer to the router. Will work in any wall socket.
https://powercity.ie/index.php?par=20-27-PA4010&action=moreinfo

long_b

eddhorse wrote: »

You could use a powerline adapter to get the ethernet connection closer to the router. Will work in any wall socket.
https://powercity.ie/index.php?par=20-27-PA4010&action=moreinfo

Best suggestion so far I think.
I find the 2.4GHz wifi on the F2000 just drops out *a lot*

biko

As you probably know XP is no longer supported so no-one is going to bother with it.

See if you can install ubuntu alongside XP (dual boot) and get that to work.