Wireless Connection "excellent"--but no internet access? HUH?

  • Thread starter Thread starter terry b.
  • Start date Start date
T

terry b.

Hello, All you networking experts!
Anybody got a gut-feeling on this one? I'm trying to set up a new
laptop on an existing home WLAN. (The wireless network works fine with
other laptops.) I've set the laptop's ip address (and it shows up fine
in ipconfig /all), and set its encryption key to match the router's
key. O.K. so far. And on the laptop, in the notification tray, the
little 2-computers-hooked-together icon shows up and when I hover over
it it says "<wireless network name> Signal Strength Excellent". And
when I open up Network Connections & look at the entry for the Broadcom
wireless adapter, it says "Enabled" and looks like it's
connected....BUT I can't get access to any web sites! I open a browser,
type google.com or whatever, and keep getting a Not Found error-window.

Isn't this a basic contradiction? For the sys tray icon and the
Network Connections adaptername to both be telling me that everything's
connected--but NOT to be able to surf the web? [BTW, all firewalls are
turned off & disabled while I try to set the laptop up.]
Anybody got an idea?
TIA for the help [:-)
riprap.
 
Hello, All you networking experts!
Anybody got a gut-feeling on this one? I'm trying to set up a new
laptop on an existing home WLAN. (The wireless network works fine with
other laptops.) I've set the laptop's ip address (and it shows up fine
in ipconfig /all), and set its encryption key to match the router's
key. O.K. so far. And on the laptop, in the notification tray, the
little 2-computers-hooked-together icon shows up and when I hover over
it it says "<wireless network name> Signal Strength Excellent". And
when I open up Network Connections & look at the entry for the Broadcom
wireless adapter, it says "Enabled" and looks like it's
connected....BUT I can't get access to any web sites! I open a browser,
type google.com or whatever, and keep getting a Not Found error-window.

Isn't this a basic contradiction? For the sys tray icon and the
Network Connections adaptername to both be telling me that everything's
connected--but NOT to be able to surf the web? [BTW, all firewalls are
turned off & disabled while I try to set the laptop up.]
Anybody got an idea?
TIA for the help [:-)
riprap.
Click to expand...

If you set the IP address manually, you also have to set the default
gateway and DNS server addresses to get Internet access.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
 
Hello, Steve
I had already gone into [on the 'problem laptop'] Network
Connections, and clicked on the wlan adapter in question, brought up
Properties for TCP/IP, and set those parameters. No joy. When I run
ipconfig /all, the correct ip address + the correct DNS address come up
just fine. Also, in Device Mgr, when I check on the adapter I'm told
that the correct drivers are in place, and the device is running
properly. I guess my next step is to detect the exact
manufacturer/model of chipset and adapter, go to manufacturer's website
& see if there're any updated drivers??? [I'm temporarily-stumped
here.]
Thanks for your time!
riprap
 
Terry

Having a partial memory return here - if I remember correctly I did
something similar to a friends laptop - Have you got I.E configured to use
the LAN as its connection.?

Regards
Colin
 
Hello, Colin
You know, I thought about that setting you're talking about, the one
that's got the choices to connect automatically, or to connect w/ a
proxy server, etc. And I went there & tried having all the boxes
unchecked, & also tried having the 'connect automatically' checked.
No Joy.
This has got me bamboozled! It's strange as heck that the laptop has
excellent wireless file- & folder-sharing abilities w/ the host
computer, can see & ping the host computer just fine....but the laptop
has absolutely no internet connection, even though all the status
indicators in Network Connections show that all is 'enabled' and
connected, etc.
BTW, I did run netsh > int ip reset resetlog.txt. The command
executed fine, but didn't help w/ the problem....
Any other ideas???

TIA
riprap.
 
Hello, V Green
Thanks for taking the time to reply [:-)
No, MAC filtering isn't enabled on the router, and in fact hasn't
ever been used w/ this wireless setup. There're 2-3 other laptops in
use on same network, and they can access the internet w/ no problems at
all...One note: I temporarily hard-wired the laptop in question to the
router, and it connected to the net just fine! Crude logic tells me
it's an issue w/ the laptop's wireless [or TCP/IP? or Winsock?]
capability. So I took the time to download & install the latest drivers
I could find for the Broadcom adapter in question [BTW, the laptop's an
hp dv1130us, for what it's worth], but that didn't seem to help.
Again, the sys tray icon says that wlan connection is enabled &
strong, and in fact the unit can access & share shared folders with the
host unit w/ no problems.
Any other ideas? I'd sure appreciate your sharing them!

riprap
 
terry said:
Hello, All you networking experts!
Anybody got a gut-feeling on this one? I'm trying to set up a new
laptop on an existing home WLAN. (The wireless network works fine with
other laptops.) I've set the laptop's ip address (and it shows up fine
in ipconfig /all), and set its encryption key to match the router's
key. O.K. so far. And on the laptop, in the notification tray, the
little 2-computers-hooked-together icon shows up and when I hover over
it it says "<wireless network name> Signal Strength Excellent". And
when I open up Network Connections & look at the entry for the Broadcom
wireless adapter, it says "Enabled" and looks like it's
connected....BUT I can't get access to any web sites! I open a browser,
type google.com or whatever, and keep getting a Not Found error-window.

Isn't this a basic contradiction? For the sys tray icon and the
Network Connections adaptername to both be telling me that everything's
connected--but NOT to be able to surf the web? [BTW, all firewalls are
turned off & disabled while I try to set the laptop up.]
Anybody got an idea?
TIA for the help [:-)
riprap.
Click to expand...

I have seen that situation many times when setting up or changing a
network. Good connection to the wireless AP but no Internet. You said
you set the IP address manually. Is it in the correect range for the
router? Why can't you let the router DHCP set the IP address? And the
DNS server and gateway will be needed before you will get Internet
access. You could try pinging a web site with the IP address and with
the name for a clue. If you can't ping with either method, it is
probably a local network address problem. If you can ping with IP
address but not with name it is a DNS problem

Good luck, jimbo
 
Hello, jimbo
Sounds like you've got some experience to draw on...Dig this:
As I posted earlier, there're other laptops on the wlan that seem to
have no problems accessing the internet. What I did just now was to set
up the "Problem Child" unit alongside one that works, and I compared
the settings under Network Connections > [wireless adapter] Properties.
BOTH laptops are set up to obtain IP addresses and DNS servers
addresses automatically. When I go into a cmd line, into netsh, and
enter 'diag show dns', both units give exactly the same response, which
is to refer to the D-Link router as the DNS server.
Can you see why I'm stumped with this?
I used the good laptop to resolve google.com's common name to ip
address. Then [following your suggestion] I went to Problem Child and,
instead of entering "ping google.com", I entered "ping 64.233.187.99".
Got exactly the same response, which was "Request timed out".
I've used "ipconfig /flushdns" several times. I've used "netsh int ip
reset resetlog.txt", to try to make sure the TCP/IP stack is in good
order. No joy.
Does your experience with these type of situations lead you to any
other ideas???

riprap.
 
terry b. said:
Hello, jimbo
Sounds like you've got some experience to draw on...Dig this:
As I posted earlier, there're other laptops on the wlan that seem to
have no problems accessing the internet. What I did just now was to set
up the "Problem Child" unit alongside one that works, and I compared
the settings under Network Connections > [wireless adapter] Properties.
BOTH laptops are set up to obtain IP addresses and DNS servers
addresses automatically. When I go into a cmd line, into netsh, and
enter 'diag show dns', both units give exactly the same response, which
is to refer to the D-Link router as the DNS server.
Click to expand...

Huh.

When I do this, I see my ISP's DNS servers, I am NOT
being proxied by my router (a Netgear).

Is there an option to turn off DNS proxy in the Web Setup
Screens? I know that your other machines apparently work
OK with this, but it'll help narrow things down IF P.C. works
when you shut ths option down.

Can you see why I'm stumped with this?
I used the good laptop to resolve google.com's common name to ip
address. Then [following your suggestion] I went to Problem Child and,
instead of entering "ping google.com", I entered "ping 64.233.187.99".
Got exactly the same response, which was "Request timed out".
I've used "ipconfig /flushdns" several times. I've used "netsh int ip
reset resetlog.txt", to try to make sure the TCP/IP stack is in good
order. No joy.
Does your experience with these type of situations lead you to any
other ideas???

riprap.
Click to expand...
 
A Large Hello to All,
Finally got the hp laptop 'online' with the wireless network. Got to
my wit's end & decided to just go into the router's config screen and
static-assign a new IP address, then went into Network Connections on
the problem unit and manually-entered it into the adapter's TCP/IP
Properties. Also made sure the new IP was entered into all LMHOSTS
files on all units..and the connection came up just fine.
Thanks a ton for all the input, people [:-) I don't know
nearly-enough about networking to avoid becoming very frustrated
sometimes, and it's excellent to receive help from virtual strangers
(bad play on words). At any rate
Happy networking!

riprap
 
terry said:
A Large Hello to All,
Finally got the hp laptop 'online' with the wireless network. Got to
my wit's end & decided to just go into the router's config screen and
static-assign a new IP address, then went into Network Connections on
the problem unit and manually-entered it into the adapter's TCP/IP
Properties. Also made sure the new IP was entered into all LMHOSTS
files on all units..and the connection came up just fine.
Thanks a ton for all the input, people [:-) I don't know
nearly-enough about networking to avoid becoming very frustrated
sometimes, and it's excellent to receive help from virtual strangers
(bad play on words). At any rate
Happy networking!

riprap
Click to expand...
Glad you got things working. I was going to suggest "the last resort"
that I use when things just won't work. Power everything down, modem,
router and all computers on the network. Wait about 30-45 seconds,
then power up the modem. Wait about 30-45 seconds, then power up the
router. Wait about 30-45 seconds, then power up the computers on the
network one at a time. This procedure will usually get things back in
sync. And as a "last, last resort", do a hardware reset of the router,
then do "last resort" procedure then reconfigure the router.

Good luck, jimbo
 
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