Hi, I don't know if anyone here will be able to help me out or not but I'm looking for some help on connecting to a wireless network I have access to. Perhaps someone knows another good forum if no one here knows? Anyway, I'm completely new to wifi so please bear with me. The network I am trying to get on belongs to a local shop just about 30 meters from my house. I have full permission to use the network from the guy who owns the shop (actually his son, who owns the network) aslong as I don't download lots before 7pm and free up the bandwidth again by 8am. The network is open so there is no WEP or anything, the guy says it should just work on channel 6. When I change the channel on the windows wireless utility, or the dell one which I also use sometimes, it makes no difference, and it's normally on channel 6 by default. Netstumbler tells me it should connect on channel 6 by default anyway so I don't know if this is the problem or not, I doubt it since I have connected to another wireless network and accessed the internet no problem. However I don't know who owns the other network and don't have permission to use it (also the signal is very weak whereas the one from my friends shop is strong). His son even checked my settings with his laptop next to my computer and everthing looked the same, so neither of us know why it won't connect. It all looks fine, good consistent signal and everything it's just when you click connect on it nothing happens when usually it would be acquiring network address. When I connect to the other wireless network (the weak signal one) it starts acquiring the address immediatly and connects a few seconds later. Can anyone help with this? Perhaps there are things I can do with netstumbler to check out the situation (I don't know much about netstumbler at present)? Or other tools? Appreciate any help Thanks
Are you able to connect to his network from the store? The fact that you have dell's wifi and windows wifi, can be a problem. SEe if you can use only the dell's wifi config tool to set up. If it doesnt work, try to tell windows to only use WIndows WIFI setup. See if you are able to first View Wireless network...then try to connect to the one with the most signal. Also make sure your hardware wireless switch is turned on. depending on the model, you can enable it through a combination of the Fn ( function) and possibly a ))) looking button. The wifi indicator on your laptop should be BLUE. ALso make sure your Bluetooth is disabled. Hope this helps. You can always pm me if it doesnt.
Thanks for the reply YesYou no I cannot connect to the network even when I'm in the shop. When I use the dell wireless utility I have to disable the windows one and vice versa. I'm pretty sure the wireless hardware is switched on and functioning ok because I have connected to other wireless networks using it no problem. I have since tried connecting with a friends computer with a linksys wifi adapter, still the same situation. I have tried both the windows utility and the linksys utility on that laptop and it wont connect like mine, however, the linksys utility did show an error "cannot associate with the access point". I think this is the problem, as when it usually associates the yellow circle starts moving on the icon in the taskbar (on the windows wireless network icon), this happens normally when associating with wifi networks (and it then aquires an ip and fully connects) but this has never happened with the network in question. The windows utility just says "waiting for network" then just stops after a while, the linksys one tells me it cannot associate with the access point. I do not have bluetooth on either of the pcs I tried with. I was thinking perhaps the wifi adapter from dell I was using was just somehow not compatible with this network but I doubt this now as I have tried with the Linksys to the same effect. Any further comments much appreciated Thanks
Often times the error Limited or NO Connectivity means a couple of things: 1. Your MAC address isnt registered with the secure network's database. 2. You are trying to connect when all of the connections ports are already taken up..for example: an access point might only allow 25members....and if 25 members are already online, then you come in as the 26th and it might now allow you to connect. 3. Please disable the windows wireless config tool and try to use only the dell tool. Also click on Start->fun-> type CMD -> then type ipconfig and see if u get an IP address. If you get an IP, then you are good to go. Also try to ping a website: ping www.google.com and see if it connects. check the following: right click on your MyComputer icon click on MANAGE double click on Services and Application click on Services scroll down to Wireless Zero Configuration and make sure the status is STARTED, and the Startup type is AUTOMATIC. Let me know how it works out...otherwise we wil have to try other means...
