Wireless setup issue.

I'm posting this from my wifes laptop, I'll explain. For unimportant reasons, my wife and I moved house. The new house has telephone/net services from TeleNor. Her laptop connects to the net without issue. The telephone is VOIP and works fine.

My computers, at the old place, connected via my own router and cables. No problem. My wife did not, however, want my computers in the living room of the new house, so they are in an upstairs bedroom, where I am right now, typing on her laptop.

I bought wireless adaptors for my machines, supposedly reliable TrendNet cards. These, I have installed in the machines, and loaded the software. I have an icon in the tray saying I have connection to the router and excellent signal strength.

I try 4 different browsers, Outlook, BOINC and SiSoft Sandra - none of these can see the net however. The machines run Windows XP, fully patched.

There is clearly something wrong, but I cannot see where. Any ideas?

Do you have limited connectivity? That is, typically some IP that starts at 16X.x.x.x something. I don't recall how to get ip on XP, though. If so, you aren't receiving an IP correctly. Possible issues might be incorrectly configured router or incorrectly configured network connection settings. Make sure that you get ip address automatically from your router and the same for DNS information. Make sure that the router's DHCP function is on and is configured to hand out IP addresses in the range 192.168.0.1-192.168.254.254.
Can you connect if you use a cable directly? If not, then check if your router is actually connected to the net. Did it receive an IP from your ISP? If not, you will have to configure those settings. Your ISP should know what settings you should use.

You can visit 192.168.0.1 in your browser to see if there's a connection to the router. Or you could go to the terminal and do "ipconfig /all", this will give you an overview of all connections, usually there is only 1 or 2. If the IP adress is 192.168.xxxx then you're in business, if it's 0.0.0.0 then you're not (In this case try "ipconfig /release" followed by "ipconfig /renew", probably won't help but always worth a shot.)

If you can get access to the router then the problem is probably not with your WiFi cards, it's probably with the router settings.

There is no guarantee the router is at 192.168.0.1. You'd have to check your default gateway.
Also, you wouldn't have 0.0.0.0 if you're connected.
Finally, I don't think ipconfig works in XP. I'm not sure, though. It's such an antique OS I haven't used in ... well, since Vista came out.

192.168.0.1 gives nothing.

ipconfig does work on XP, (which I returned to because I hated Vista so much). It indeed shows the older style IP as 0.0.0.0 but the newer IP is filled fe80::214:d1ff:... and so on.

Concentrate on the older-style IP. If it's 0.0.0.0, it means you have no IP, which is the reason you can't access Internet.
Check your network settings to make sure it's set to get IP automatically (again, don't know how to do it in XP).
Try resetting your wireless adapter. Try restarting your router. Then try to connect again.
If it still doesn't work, then does it work with a cable?

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Originally Posted by Fossaw

192.168.0.1 gives nothing.

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Try 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.2.1.

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ipconfig does work on XP, (which I returned to because I hated Vista so much). It indeed shows the older style IP as 0.0.0.0 but the newer IP is filled fe80::214:d1ff:... and so on.

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Forget about ipv6. Go to Network Connections in the control panel and right click your wireless connection, choose Properties. Locate the "IPv4 Protocol TCP" in the list and press Advanced/Settings, then in the first tab of the window that appears, make sure it's requesting an IP from the router automagically. It's been a while since i've used XP so the names might not be exact. This is the default setting so it's most likely not the issue, i'd second Elysias suggestion and hook up to the router with a cable, then you can atleast access the interface and find out if it has anything to do with the settings in there.

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Finally, I don't think ipconfig works in XP. I'm not sure, though. It's such an antique OS I haven't used in ... well, since Vista came out.

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ipconfig has been available since Windows 95.

You have a computer that is connecting, the wife's. So maybe look at the settings on that computer, and insure your computer is using the same settings for everything except the IP address, the IP address should be using the same subnets.

Also you may need to check your firewall settings.


Jim

Those addresses give nothing either.

I highlighted "Internet Protocol TCP/IP" and pressed properties. This shows Obtain an IP address automatically is checked.

Before I started this, I had moved the system downstairs and connected it with a cable. It was the same, I was unable to get out.

The guy at the shop in Helsingør where I got the cards said they have had no bad reports about the TrendNet cards.

Jim, my wifes laptop runs Windows 7, I don't know where the equivalent settings are. I'll look further but must release her machine right now.

Okay, I found some pages that look relevent on her machine, but frankly, it tells me nothing which would progress this issue.

Does your wife's machine also use get ip automatically?

This is a guess, as I can't find the page in this Windows version, but I believe it must. The laptop worked at our old house, and it worked at this house. Since the connection changed address and service provider, the chances of it ending up with the same IP seem remote. My wife is a net user, in no way technical, she wouldn't know how to do it, she just turns the machine on, and uses it. I have not set it up for her.

I have tried to get a fixed IP address in the past, (Apache web server), but am still trying.

ncpa.cpl -> wireless network connection -> properties -> internet protocol stack (v4).
Check if get automatic ip is checked.

Since you are using a router, it would not be surprising if it worked with a static ip because you would be using a fixed private ip 192.168.x.x, which would always work if the router is set up in router mode.
It would be another matter if the computer was using a fixed public IP, which would definitely change between two ISPs.

If the machine gets an IP automatically, find out what ip it gets assigned and the subnet mask and gateway.
Using this information, it may be possible to set up a static ip for your machine to see if that will work.

It is checked.

Yes, you're right the address from the router to the PC would not change, at least for a wired connection. That is not something I had considered. I don't know how the addressing is for wireless - I'll have a look.

Of course, that does not help with the original problem...

1) See if you can connect using a Linux Live disk.

If you can connect, you know the problem is with your OS and not a problem with hardware, router, etc. NOTE: Make sure that your WNIC is supported by Linux and the distro (including any firmware).

2) Reinstall the wireless device with no other network devices installed.

Uninstall all network devices and physically remove them from the PC. If you have onboard NIC, disable in BIOS. Make sure NIC's are gone from Device Manager. Then, reinstall the device following the TrendNet's directions.

3) Factory reset and reconfigure the router. Follow the directions for your router model.

These might help you in troubleshooting your problem.