Wireless Network Problem

[harveymt]

Having problems with my wireless network. Im with Virgin. I still have an old NTL cable modem which is wired to wireless router. If they are switched on and then I switch on my laptop or desktop then it will connect to the wireless network but if I open FireFox then it will not access the Internet. If I switch off the router and connect the laptop directly to modem via Ethernet, switch off the modem, unscrew the cable connected to it, wait 30 secs, screw cable back in, then switch on modem, I can connect to net over this wired connection. If I switch on router and try to connect again wirelessly then the same thing happens and I have to go through the above process once more.

I was staying in a hotel the last couple of days and connected to their free wireless network and Im wondering if this has done something to my laptop settings. I think this is something to do with IP addresses getting changed and this being where my problem lies. I don't know enough to be sure.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do?

 

[John Duncan]

PC or Mac, and if the former, what version of windows?

 

[harveymt]

Both PC. Laptop is XP, Desktop is Vista.

Upon further investigation, once I get connected over wired connection via latop, if I switch it off and switch on wireless router, the desktop will connect wirelessly with no problems. It's only when laptop is switched on that something happens that means I cannot connect to Internet. So i presume I need to fix some setting on laptop.

BTW, when I say laptop it's actually an Asus EeePC net book.

 

[Tonestar1]

Could be a xp wireless zero configuration problem. Google it. Not why this would be causing a problem with vista though.

I spent many a frustrating hour trying to fix my mates asus netbook (Not sure what model). got there in the end, hope you do to.

 

[harveymt]

I don't think the desktop is part of the problem. I think the netbook is doing something to the modem when it tries to connect to it. Whatever it's doing means if I try to connect with something else it won't connect. I've tried in Network Connections, right click on Wireless Connection, Status, Repair and get an error message it can't repair as it can't renew the IP address. Again, I don't know enought to know how to fix it.

Im nearly sure the netbook is doing something to the modem.

 

[davejberry]

It may be that you have switched off the automatic part when you entered the details for the hotel network.

On the laptop, open firefox

click on tools on the top menu

select options

click on the advanced tab (far right)

next to where it says 'configure how firefox connects.....' click on the settings button

select the 'detect proxy automatically', save and exit.

close firefox.

open network connection in control panel, click on icon for your wireless network adaptor.

in the menu to the left click on 'view avail networks'

select yours when it appears in the list

click on connect

enter your password when asked( assume you have this written down somewhere)

that should be it

hope its clear enough

 

[harveymt]

That has fixed it. Cheers Dave.

A few questions. What are 'proxys' or what do they do? In laymans terms if possible. I've tried reading up but they get overly technical.

And my desktop was set to no proxy as opposed to auto-detect but still connected ok. Why would that be?

 

[professorhat]

An internet proxy server is normally used within a company. The main idea behind it is to cache (or store locally) web pages that people have visited. By doing this, if someone else within the company goes to visit the same web site, the proxy will send them the copy it stored locally rather than retrieving it from the internet, thus saving bandwidth on their internet connection for other people. Clearly for a company with lots of employees, this can help save large amounts of data being sent to and from their internet connection e.g. lots of people visit the bbc.co.uk web site at lunch time, the proxy server retrieves the main page once at that time, stores it on its local hard drive and then sends everyone else who requests it the page from its own hard drive. There are safeguards in place on the web site to ensure that the proxy server will update this local copy at regular intervals to make sure it's up to date and people don't get old information.

They have other purposes sometimes (e.g. filtering to prevent a company's employees visiting Facebook and the like), but for your purposes at home, you have no need for a proxy server really and that's why you have your settings not configured for one, or to auto-detect in which case, since it won't find one, it will connect directly out to the internet.