Computer help

[browndk26]

Today our laptop sees the network but won't connect wirelessly when it worked fine before. I have tried rebooting the computers and modem and router. No success. I can connect to other unsecured networks in the neighborhood. I have checked my WEP password and it is still correct. MAC address filtering is on and the laptops MAC address is still there. Any suggestions besides a new router?

[Uniquely]

Does your router have a wi-fi light? If so is it on? Do you have any other wi-fi devices (smartphone, PS3, Wii, anything) and are they having issues as well?

I JUST finished installing a new router not more than 30 minutes ago. I have all of my network gear in my hall closet, and my heat pump unit is in the attic directly above that closet. Apparently my condensation drain got clogged and water leaked into the closet on to my router. Sizzle fried. Replaced it with a Linksys (by Cisco) Wirless N with gigabit ethernet. It has the new easy set up which is AWESOME!

[browndk26]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

Does your router have a wi-fi light? If so is it on? Do you have any other wi-fi devices (smartphone, PS3, Wii, anything) and are they having issues as well?

The wireless and internet lights are on. No I didn't think to try have other wireless devices connect. I'll try that next.

The WII and a DSLITE won't connect. Guess it is time for a new router.

[JasonR]

Try deleting it from your preferred networks, rebooting, and reconnecting.

[browndk26]

Originally Posted by JasonR

Try deleting it from your preferred networks, rebooting, and reconnecting.

Didn't work. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Sussudio]

Change the wireless channel in your router's control panel. I believe 1, 6, and 11 are the best ones to use (your router is probably set to one of them, or auto), so try switching to another and see what happens (I had a problem similar to yours and this fixed it for me )

[brettallica]

One thing I'd like to recommend (sorry I'm late) is to turn off all the protection and filters that you're using with your router. If you remove all the protection and you can connect, then you know something is going on in your security scheme — whether that's the router tripping out, or you having the wrong password, or something like that. If you can connect after removing all your security, then what I would do is try re-applying one protection scheme at a time. So the first thing I would do is to apply a MAC filter, then test...then apply the password, then test...and so on. Once your computer fails to connect to your network, you should be able to isolate the problem.

It might not hurt to simply reset all your passwords and stuff, too, both from your computer's password manager and your router's GUI.

[Uniquely]

If you do buy a new router..... I highly recomend the Linksys I set up yesterday. Setup was quite painless... which isn't always the case when you have DSL that uses PPPoE. All of my devices connected with zero hassle. I chose the Linksys because I've been using a similar model at work for a couple of years and it is always rock solid.... never needs resetting.

I'm also really loving the extra network management sofware that came with it (it of course still has the typical router management that you can access from your browser as well.)






The Linksys Easy advisor did a great job of recognizing all of my hardware and even inserting the right type of image for the device on most of my gear. I originally installed this software on my wife's laptop, because I used it to configure the router. I liked it so much I decided to put it on my desktop so I could use it from there. When I installed it to the desktop.... the network map shown above was already complete.... so that means this info is stored in the routers memory.

[brettallica]

Dude, the GUI for that router is pretty sick! It makes me want a new router now.

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by brettallica

Dude, the GUI for that router is pretty sick! It makes me want a new router now.

It is pretty nice. It labelled my lappy and desktop with the correct PC names, and gave them appropriate pics. It recognized my XBox's and printer and gave them appropriate pics. Other things came up as unknown devices, like my phones, wii and my blu-ray player... so I just checked the IP address on each to be sure what was what, and then renamed each and gave them the appropriate pics. You can only do fairly simple things from this GUI, like repair connection.... but it also takes you directly to the browser management for more advanced options.... which it has tons of new options that my older router did not.

The green shows online and gray is offline. Solid lines are ethernet connections and dotted lines are wifi, although all offline devices show as solid line. It is showing my iphone as ethernet, which is weird.

It is really handy though to be able to go into that GUI first and have easy acces to each devices IP address before going into the more advanced browser management to do things like set up DMZ and such.

[Anthony P]

do you have a separate internet gate way and router? does your router have Ethernet ports and did you try them? does your internet gate way have Ethernet ports and did you try them.

you made sure that it is not the laptop by testing Wii, but there can be other issues that might have nothing to do with wi-fi issues from the router.

[Kyo28]

Interesting GUI on the linksys! Does it also automatically recognize and label other devices, such as Playstation 3, Wii, DS, PSP, etc?

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by Kyo28

Interesting GUI on the linksys! Does it also automatically recognize and label other devices, such as Playstation 3, Wii, DS, PSP, etc?

My Wii came up as unkown device. My PS3 is dead and I don't have the others you mention.