Router Trouble

I'm not very experienced with routers (I know how to open ports for WC3 hosting, but that's about it), so this may seem like a simple or dumb question to some of the more knowledgeable members here. Feel free to point me at the proper troubleshooting website rather then spending time explaining if it's a common or easily solved problem.

I've got a weird issue with the wireless router at my girlfriend's apartment: Whenever I try to connect (the signal is always 5 bars, and I have no trouble entering the network key), it gets stuck on "acquiring network address", and will stay that way for as long as I leave it.

It's a Motorola 3347. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Either DHCP is disabled or some security measure prevents you from accessing the network at all (MAC address filtering, mandatory protocol not supported, i.e. network is WPA2-only, wrong encryption key, ...).

I would try setting a Static IP address on your computer. As long as you use the right encryption then, it should work fine.

Most likely a MAC Adress filter denies access to your network.

A MAC Adress is a unique validation key for your network adapter. You have to include your MAC Adress in the router's filter.

You can obtain your MAC Adress by:

Start -> Run... -> Enter cmd

A DOS box prompt will appear. Type in: ipconfig /all

Some informations will be displayed. Search for 'Physical Adress' and write it down somewhere. It should be five couples of alphanumericals seperated by "-"

Now open the router configuration (from any computer who has access to the router network, i.g. your girlfriend's. Usually you do this by searching an IP adress in your browser. Consult your manual if you have problems how to gain access to your router!). Search for the MAC Adress filter. If it is enabled enter the adress noted above and make sure you grant access for this adress.

If this won't work report back pls!

Thanks everyone for the help. We were browsing through the router settings and noticed that we were entering a word incorrectly for the network key. Why it was taking the router forever to let me know the password was incorrect, I don't know, but it seems to be working fine now.