| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/3/2009 8:22:30 PM | I've asked a few computer savy's about this and no body seems to be able to understand my computer... recently my wireless stopped working. (Not the wireless source but wireless in general.) My computer keeps SAYING I'm connected and that there are no problems but the internet doesn't actually work.
I'd looked up my IP address/Gateway etc to see what all's going on. I've renewed my IP, updated drivers etc... everything I do doesn't seem to make any difference... and half the time it comes up that I don't have a gateway at all and when I put a standard one it, it doesn't work either.
When my computer is plugged into an internet cable it works immediately, this is only a wireless problem... help! Any ideas? | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/3/2009 8:57:06 PM | Do a hard re-boot of your modem and see if that fixes the problem.
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/3/2009 9:14:23 PM | Can you ping the router?
When it says you're connected you have physical link, but you may not have network transport.
start --> run --> cmd.exe
ping 198.162.1.1
That'll either say "timed out" or give you numbers indicating how long the ping packet took to get to the router.
Try that and post the results. It'll narrow down the problem. | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/3/2009 9:46:40 PM | Wow this is really hard without knowing alot of stuff about your computer. What OS is this computer running?
Click on Control Panel and click on Network Settings or Network Center.
It should bring up your connections. Click on the wireless setting and see if you have good signal strength. If you don't...Ensure the wireless switch on. It is a very very small switch usually on the front of the keyboard or sometimes up near the screen/monitor. Sometimes they are illuminated...sometimes they aren't. It might have a depiction of a radio antenna or something similar.
In truth the best situation is take it into any computer store you trust and ask them to help you to make sure it is working. They more then likely won't charge you anything...and if they do it will be nominal at best. It will be the fastest way to get your questions answered and you up and working wireless at least.
My gut guess is the wireless switch is off or....you stayed at a hotel/motel or something and need to reset your connections to your wireless location. However with out actually being there I could spend the rest of my natural life asking questions and hoping to help you and get nowhere.
Updated drivers....YIKES. Out of curiosity what led you in that direction?
I might add that most laptops have a connectivity tool that will help you set up your connection. I have a Toshiba and I must admit it is pretty darn good. Have you looked for or tried that route? They are usually in folder named after the manufacturer of the PC in the All Programs Section. Mine even shows the position of the wireless switch if that might be the problem.
Seriously if you can't get it working I would go to any PC shop and they will have you up and running quickly. | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/4/2009 2:07:25 AM | Have you tried logging onto another wireless connection, ie if it is a laptop taken it over a friends and tried to log on there. If you cannot then you clearly have a problem with the internal card and/or the software trying to read it. In which case ie it still under warranty, take it to a pc repair shop etc. If you logged onto your friends wifi then there is something you are doing wrong on your home router. Sometimes you can log into a router with the incorrect password and it looks like you have an internet connection but will get no internet. Try clearing the old login protocol and go through the whole connect to the internet step by step, checking the password and caps lock...it might sound like I'm teaching you to suck eggs or treating you like an idiot but often or not it is something so simple.
If this doesn't work then you need to give a lot more info, what OS, router, wifi card...anyway good luck | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/4/2009 6:36:59 AM |
My computer keeps SAYING I'm connected and that there are no problems but the internet doesn't actually work.
this sounds like a TCP/IP stack problem.
I'd looked up my IP address/Gateway etc to see what all's going on. I've renewed my IP, updated drivers etc... everything I do doesn't seem to make any difference... and half the time it comes up that I don't have a gateway at all and when I put a standard one it, it doesn't work either.
that souns like an DHCP issue. the gateway is basically the IP address of your router...it's where the computer goes to get internet traffic.
I'm assumming you've tried "repair" and "ipconfig /renew" from command prompt and they didn't help ya.
try this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299357 | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/4/2009 8:05:34 AM | Have you run a ipconfig to see what your nic card is showing under the wireless connection.
Something like this:
Start, Run, cmd and hit ok then type "ipconfig" and enter.
Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Belkin
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
Does your default gateway show the address of 192.168.1.1 or is it blank?
You stated you manually updated your gateway with a standard one? What did you use as the standard address?
Have you tried to delete the nic card from the Device Manager all together and let the system recreate it?
Go to Start, Control Panel, double click on the "System" icon, click on the "Hardware" tab and then Device Manager.
In the Device Manger, find the Network Adapters (should have a + by it) expand it, find the wireless adapter, then right click and uninstall. You can right click on the Computer name at the top and "scan for new hardware" or just reboot. The OS will find the hardware and re-install it.
After the card has been re-installed, reconnect to your wireless and see if still get the same issue.
Let us know. | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/4/2009 3:17:58 PM | When you say the internet doesn't work, could you be more specific about what isn't working:
DNS resolution of domain names.
HTTP/HTTPS web traffic.
Connecting to game servers to play games on-line through a non-web connection.
SMTP traffic.
FTP/SFTP traffic.
I could go on but I hope you get the drift that what you mean by internet may help diagnose the problem. Additionally, is this a home wireless connection like a laptop to a home router or is this one of those wireless USB cards or sticks that some ISPs give to connect to their network from anywhere?
Those are a couple of things that would help narrow down to the problem as there really is 1,001 things that make the internet run. | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/4/2009 11:40:09 PM | | You can try changing your wireless channel to 1,6,11 because the other channel may be interfering with your household mobile/cordless phones and or microwaves. | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/5/2009 10:46:42 AM | I had a problem a while ago. Everyone here was helping me so much and it turned out the solution was rather dumb.
Not sure if it's similar at all, but my desktop computer wouldn't detect my network. Yet my other devices did. Resetting things, rebooting things, erasing and changing things didn't help. My friend unintentionally switched the cords in back and it worked. (modem-->router cord, router-->computer cord).
(turns out at least one other person in my area had the same prob after Shaw had problems with wires outside) | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/5/2009 11:10:04 AM | | Is it just the internet that doesnt work, or does other network traffic not work either? | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/5/2009 2:38:16 PM |
You can try changing your wireless channel to 1,6,11 because the other channel may be interfering with your household mobile/cordless phones and or microwaves.
There is currently NO mobile phone on the market anywhere in the world that operates in the 2.4 ghz range that WiFi is in. The highest frequencies used for mobile/cellular technology is somewhere around 1900mhz, which is only used I believe in the US for PCS communications (CDMA)....GSM and other parts of the world use slightly different bands.
Cordless phones however DO operate in the 2.4ghz range...depending on the phone...however, this would be somewhat noticable as your internet would drop out when the phone is on and only when the phone is on. This however is very subjective. Not all phones operate in the 2.4 range...and the ones that do sometimes use a spead spectrum technology that will reduce interference with other devices in the ISM band (which your cordless phones, microwaves and wifi operate in)
The same goes for a microwave...for starters, if your microwave interferes with your wifi and it's in another room....for your own safety...get a new microwave, that indicates it's leaking entirely too much radiation. Being in close proximity to a microwave when it's on and having signal/connection loss is to be expected.
However, you may want to consider checking your channel. If your neighbors also have WiFi, then it's possible you could be crowding them and their equipment causing problem for yours....should be unlikely since the power output of these things are pretty low...however, it's generally a good idea to try to find out what WiFi points are in your area and what channels they operate on (there are pieces of software that do this..NetStumbler comes to mind)
I still suspect barring some connection issue at the router, you've purely got a TCP/IP problem or an issue with the DHCP in the router not handing you proper...or complete information to finish the connection...like the default gateway sometimes gets dropped during dhcp transmission...... | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/5/2009 4:08:47 PM |
...you've purely got a TCP/IP problem or an issue with the DHCP in the router not handing you proper..
If she is having DHCP issues then it shouldn't connect her to the internet via LAN connection.
There is another possibility, the wireless on her network adapter is malfunctioning. | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/6/2009 4:27:39 PM |
If she is having DHCP issues then it shouldn't connect her to the internet via LAN connection.
Not always. For the most part, XP handles DHCP and some portions of the TCP/IP stack differently for various connections. You bring up a point, if DHCP was that borked, it wouldn't work at all.
The fact is, DHCP doesn't bork that often and even the ancient versions implmented in Windows 3.1 still work flawlessly with modern technology. I can't exactly tell you WHAT the DHCP issue is where the gateway doesn't get assigned...I'm not sure if windows is at fault or the router....generally it's a windows issue related to a bad setting in the tcp/ip stack or some other odd error...but the only time i've seen it happen is when the dhcp server in the router starts flaking.
the dhcp server in...i think my belkin router...but it may of been my old netgear wgr614v2 router would forget to disassociate a client. dhcp works based off the MAC address in your card....so when the card talks to DHCP, since you yet have no ip, it idenifies you by the MAC, then based on what's available in the IP pool, assigns you an IP and passes on the rest of the information. generally speaking, DHCP will allow you to keep that IP address as long as the lease doesn't expire. so, if your lease time is a day (as is on most routers, although i've seen some that do weekly or monthly leases), the router will keep your mac address in it's database and for the next x amount of time, gives your computer the same ip information. however, SOMETIMES i've seen them forget to notice a card has disconnected, and maintains in it's database that it's connected. when that same card requests info from DHCP...DHCP looks and goes "you're already connected and have information" and doesn't assign it. This is generally what happens those times when you connect to your router but you can't get an IP (which seems to be more and more rare these days).
The missing gateway issue I've suffered on my own network from time to time....I never found out exactly what caused it other than a glitch somewhere between the router and the TCP/IP stack. it's not an issue if you know all your network information and just punch it in manually...although lately i've had a "delayed" gateway response where i'll get IP information and it'll be 45 seconds before the gateway is active....to be honest, i never really studied networking having dropped out of college as i was taking those classes and only have a basic understanding of how things work.
But, no, DHCP issues can affect wireless and not a wired connection...GENERALLY indicates a bad router...sometimes can be funky drivers. There's a lot to look for on both the driver configurations and router status screens that even a lot of people who really know networking overlook things...it's similar to how a guy with an electronics engineering degree needs me to come fix his pinball machine. | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/6/2009 6:04:26 PM | If your IP is set to DHCP then your default gateway should also be set to dynamic assignment, there should be no entry in the box that is for default gateway, as there should be no entry in the IP and subnet mask boxes...
If you run ipconfig from a CMD window you will of course see what your DHCP server is as said above, but your gateway doesnt need to be your router, though it usualy is on home routers | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/6/2009 7:23:45 PM | For those that are curious... the answer was unknown.... LOL
I took it to a friends house for them to look at and the wireless started working as soon as we turned on the computer. No other wireless networks worked before this one... so what I'm thinking is, somewhere along the way, I fixed the settings that were causing the problem, but the wireless I was using as a default to experiment with was ALSO not working so I never knew when I made the change that fixed it.
It was probably an IP or DHCP problem. Hopefully if this problem comes up again I'll be able to fix it the same way. | |
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| Wireless problem
Posted: 10/7/2009 6:09:27 AM |
but your gateway doesnt need to be your router, though it usualy is on home routers
the only way your gateway wouldn't be on your router is if you were directly plugged in to the internet...then you'd have a gateway that matches your IP's subnet, but generally with the last address of .1, for example...the current gateway for my internet connection at the router is 74.114.56.1 (and apparently I'm node 119)...if my modem was directly connected to the laptop, that's what the gateway would be. But I go through a router, which does NAT translation...so it too has a gateway on it's IP.
i seriously think you just had a router misconfiguration issue. with all the wireless standards and extensions, it's entirely easy to misconfigure a router and have something strange not work.
If your IP is set to DHCP then your default gateway should also be set to dynamic assignment, there should be no entry in the box that is for default gateway, as there should be no entry in the IP and subnet mask boxes...
again, yes, however, sometimes the variables from DHCP don't get passed and you either have to manually type in some of the information or keep running /renew on ipconfig till you finally get all that information.
there's also a "cheap" form of security some people do with their routers and don't have DHCP activated at all...meaning if someone does connect to the wifi spot, they won't be able to actually go anywhere or do anything beacuse nothing gives them an ip.
wireless has become a pretty solid technology, but there are still lots of various little issues. | |
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