View Full Version : Geek Help Needed - Wireless not acquiring IP Address from router
Luckypants
16-10-09, 09:32 PM
I'm hoping the mighty Org can help here.
I'm trying to sort out Speedy Claire's internet connection, she's been without it for ages! The basic problem is that her wireless USB adaptor does not get an IP address from the Netgear WGR614v7.
DHCP server in the router appears to be working. Two laptops and X-box working over it.
Wired access works
tried changing wireless channels.
tried firmware upgrade on router.
Tried reinstalling all software drivers for the USB wireless
tried the USB wireless adaptor in my laptop, works, connects correctly and is assigned an IP address.
Checked TCP/IP settings on her computer, set to be assigned an IP address from DHCP server.
Tried power on of router.
Tried turning off WEP on the wireless.
Tried WPA.
I'm fairly convinced that the problem resides with Speedy's PC as all other elements have been isolated and tested, so proved to be working.
So Windows networking gurus (hint recent MCP) what am I missing? What else should I try?
BTW this was written from my lappy over Speedy's router - it defo works!:D
Only thing I can think of is that there is a conflict from another wireless setting? Have you used that lappie to access a different wireless router??
El Saxo
16-10-09, 09:41 PM
Does her lappy work with any other wifi router? e.g. can you try it on yours / a neighbour's?
I've had similar issues with the inbuilt wireless on my lappy - it completely failed to talk to davepreston's router despite me just having installed the router for him & having done a clean install of windows on dave's lappy which worked fine, but mine wouldn't with the same settings. I also got a USB d-link dongle for my parent's PC once which completely failed to talk to the netgear router I had at the time.
Wireless gets on my t*ts to be honest! :lol:
fizzwheel
16-10-09, 09:44 PM
I'm fairly convinced that the problem resides with Speedy's PC
I'd be inclined to agree with you.
So Windows networking gurus (hint recent MCP) what am I missing? What else should I try?
Have you tried turning it off and on again ? ;)
Dunno Mike you've tried everything I would have done already....
Dave20046
16-10-09, 09:47 PM
Tried giving the wifi connection on her lappy a static IP address?
Luckypants
16-10-09, 09:48 PM
Only thing I can think of is that there is a conflict from another wireless setting? Have you used that lappie to access a different wireless router??
Ok well that is what I need to know, what conflict? When you say 'lappie' which computer do you mean? My laptop can access the wireless using either of it's two built in wireless adapters and using the Claire's USB wireless adapter. Claire's son's laptop can also access the wireless. Both of these laptops have been used to access other wireless networks. Claire's desktop PC uses the USB wireless and does not get an IP address assigned.
What should I be looking at for possible wireless conflicts on Claire's computer?
DarrenSV650S
16-10-09, 09:50 PM
Clean the gunk out of the mouse
El Saxo
16-10-09, 09:51 PM
The bit that's puzzling me is that Mike said the same USB dongle works ok in his lappy, so I don't think the router is having any issues assigning an IP to that device i.e. it is recognising its MAC etc, it just won't give it one when it's installed in Claire's PC... :confused:
EDIT Mike are you both running XP or are you on different OS's?
Luckypants
16-10-09, 09:51 PM
Does her lappy work with any other wifi router? e.g. can you try it on yours / a neighbour's?
I've had similar issues with the inbuilt wireless on my lappy - it completely failed to talk to davepreston's router despite me just having installed the router for him & having done a clean install of windows on dave's lappy which worked fine, but mine wouldn't with the same settings. I also got a USB d-link dongle for my parent's PC once which completely failed to talk to the netgear router I had at the time.
Wireless gets on my t*ts to be honest! :lol:
Claire's machine is a dektop, so cannot try it with other networks! However it sounds like you have had this issue with Netgear to LOL
timwilky
16-10-09, 09:51 PM
forget about all that wireless stuff, connect it wired, pour yourself a beer.
BTW I once had real problems, and discovered that I had set up one network sid as Wilky and the other as wilky. and couldn't use the same credentials to move between networks. I looked for hours before I spotted it
Dave20046
16-10-09, 09:51 PM
Ok well that is what I need to know, what conflict? When you say 'lappie' which computer do you mean? My laptop can access the wireless using either of it's two built in wireless adapters and using the Claire's USB wireless adapter. Claire's son's laptop can also access the wireless. Both of these laptops have been used to access other wireless networks. Claire's desktop PC uses the USB wireless and does not get an IP address assigned.
What should I be looking at for possible wireless conflicts on Claire's computer?
I think amanda means has claire's ever connected to someone else's router?
Only thing I can think to check (i'm tired and tipsy so excuse me*) si that the router and the adampter's region are both set to europe if it gives you the option. Is adapter recent?
*Had to disclaim, wish I'd never started that bloody thread now
Luckypants
16-10-09, 09:51 PM
Have you tried turning it off and on again ? ;)
LOL many times!
Luckypants
16-10-09, 09:56 PM
The bit that's puzzling me is that Mike said the same USB dongle works ok in his lappy, so I don't think the router is having any issues assigning an IP to that device i.e. it is recognising its MAC etc, it just won't give it one when it's installed in Claire's PC... :confused:
EDIT Mike are you both running XP or are you on different OS's?
Correct Andy. This foxing me good style. Both my laptop and Claire's desktop are running XP. Mine is SP3 hers is SP2. Her son's laptop is Vista and he has an x-box 360. All work fine except Claire's PC.
Sorry I confused you! and me ... lol
Lappie= laptop and I thought you were talking about a laptop. The problem sounds like it is definately a problem with the settings on the PC. There must be a program on there already which is preventing it from connecting with another wireless router?
Luckypants
16-10-09, 09:58 PM
Tried giving the wifi connection on her lappy a static IP address?
Errr would that be ok if I assigned it one in the range defined to the DHCP server or one outside the DHCP range?
El Saxo
16-10-09, 09:58 PM
Correct Andy. This foxing me good style. Both my laptop and Claire's desktop are running XP. Mine is SP3 hers is SP2. Her son's laptop is Vista and he has an x-box 360. All work fine except Claire's PC.
OK are your lappy & Claire's PC running the same version driver for the dongle? Check the revision date on Claire's & try updating / rolling back to the same revision date as the driver on your machine if they are different, as the driver on yours is known to work.
timwilky
16-10-09, 10:00 PM
OK, Mike go for broke.
problem is laptop end of things so delete it from within device manager, power cycle and then install it again according to instructions.
some things are funny and expect drivers installing before the device is plugged in etc. other than that, buy a ticket to Seatle and insert said dongle in mr Gates USB port and say hows that for plug and play bitch
Luckypants
16-10-09, 10:01 PM
OK are your lappy & Claire's PC running the same version driver for the dongle? Check the revision date on Claire's & try updating / rolling back to the same revision date as the driver on your machine if they are different, as the driver on yours is known to work.
Also a good point, I allowed my laptop to find it's own driver for the USB dongle while Claire's PC uses the supplied drivers from the CD. Poor PD technique there :(
Luckypants
16-10-09, 10:03 PM
OK, Mike go for broke.
problem is laptop end of things so delete it from within device manager, power cycle and then install it again according to instructions.
some things are funny and expect drivers installing before the device is plugged in etc. other than that, buy a ticket to Seatle and insert said dongle in mr Gates USB port and say hows that for plug and play bitch
Tried that Tim :( Is what I meant be re-install the drivers, I try to do it properly rather than just install over the top.
El Saxo
16-10-09, 10:06 PM
Also a good point, I allowed my laptop to find it's own driver for the USB dongle while Claire's PC uses the supplied drivers from the CD. Poor PD technique there :(
Is it possible to get Claire's PC connected to the router via an ethernet cable, then reinstall the dongle & allow it to update Windows and / or the drivers as necesary? It should in theory find the same driver you are using on your laptop...
Luckypants
16-10-09, 10:06 PM
forget about all that wireless stuff, connect it wired, pour yourself a beer.
BTW I once had real problems, and discovered that I had set up one network sid as Wilky and the other as wilky. and couldn't use the same credentials to move between networks. I looked for hours before I spotted it
I would, don't have a long enough cable! Buying one might be on cards tomorrow :D
Luckypants
16-10-09, 10:07 PM
Is it possible to get Claire's PC connected to the router via an ethernet cable, then reinstall the dongle & allow it to update Windows and / or the drivers as necesary? It should in theory find the same driver you are using on your laptop...See previous reply. As a general thing, if wired was possible this thread would not exist! :smt082
El Saxo
16-10-09, 10:10 PM
See previous reply. As a general thing, if wired was possible this thread would not exist! :smt082
Failing that, try downloading the latest driver from the manufacturer's website onto your laptop, then transfer across to Claire's PC & use it to install the dongle. Drivers on the accompanying CD's are often out of date, I find...
Luckypants
16-10-09, 10:14 PM
Failing that, try downloading the latest driver from the manufacturer's website onto your laptop, then transfer across to Claire's PC & use it to install the dongle. Drivers on the accompanying CD's are often out of date, I find...
Just checked and my laptop has downloaded a more up to date driver. will try updating that.
fizzwheel
16-10-09, 10:14 PM
When I setup the wireless at Liz's parents I bought a PCI Wireless Network adaptor for it and installed that.
I have an inbuilt mistrust of the USB Dongle jobbies. Everybody I know that has had one has had trouble with it.
IIRC it was only £40 or so and if I have read your posts right Claire is using a desktop PC as opposed to a laptop so this might be an option for you...
El Saxo
16-10-09, 10:25 PM
When I setup the wireless at Liz's parents I bought a PCI Wireless Network adaptor for it and installed that.
I have an inbuilt mistrust of the USB Dongle jobbies. Everybody I know that has had one has had trouble with it.
IIRC it was only £40 or so and if I have read your posts right Claire is using a desktop PC as opposed to a laptop so this might be an option for you...
That's what I ended up doing for my parent's PC and I stuck the USB dongle on evilbay, but I'd only do that as a last resort.
Luckypants
16-10-09, 10:39 PM
Just checked and my laptop has downloaded a more up to date driver. will try updating that.
I have updated the driver to the latest one (same as my laptop) and still no joy. Just re-booted now and I appear to have a looping process called winlogon.exe :( Might have buggered something else up!
fizzwheel
16-10-09, 10:48 PM
I have updated the driver to the latest one (same as my laptop) and still no joy. Just re-booted now and I appear to have a looping process called winlogon.exe :( Might have buggered something else up!
Oopsy thats not good...
OK what I'd try now is boot it in safe mode ( press F8 when windows splash screen is showing )
Then remove / unintall the drivers you've just installed and see what that does...
Luckypants
16-10-09, 10:51 PM
Thanks Fizz, he`s just in the middle of doing that... meanwhile I`ll drink his wine :D
fizzwheel
16-10-09, 11:03 PM
Thanks Fizz, he`s just in the middle of doing that... meanwhile I`ll drink his wine :D
:D:cool:
Luckypants
16-10-09, 11:11 PM
Drivers gone, system restore back to 1st October, still got looping task, winlogon.exe.
Claire has been moaning for a while her computer slow, perhaps this is the answer! I suspect that maybe the DHCP is connected, the driver does not have access to the CPU in sufficient time to process the address. Bloody interrupt driven useless INTEL crap!
Thanks for all the help guys, gonna knock this on the head for now and then work out why this winlogon.exe is looping.
-Ralph-
17-10-09, 12:15 AM
It does sound like a driver compatibility issue. When you look at the card properties and you see bytes/packets sent and received, do you have a very high number on sent and a very low number on low number on rec'd?
One consideration is that you've spend two hours on it so far that we all know about, and no doubt countless that we don't. Check you have the all CD's you need to reinstall your software, backup your files, and wipe the bugger and start again. Will take you 3 hours at most if you have to install from scratch, and 30 minutes if the PC has a restore CD or partition with a factory image.
Sledgehammer to crack a nut, but at the end of the day, given that the USB device works in another machine and there is no hardware fault, it's a guaranteed fix and will sort out any other problems Claire has been having at the same time.
Dave20046
17-10-09, 07:42 AM
Is the connection managed by windows?
You can view and connect to the network but it comes up with limited or no connectivity?
Have you double & triple checked the key is in correctly?
Did you try the static IP address? It wants to be in the same subnet as the router so if the router is 192.168.1.1 pick something obscure like 192.168.1.99 or 230 to ensure you're not conflicting with anything else on the network.
If you go to start, run, cmd (enter) and type "ipconfig /all" what info is displayed?
Mike,
First thing I would try is the static ip address route. This elliminates dhcp all together. As mentioned, you just need an address in the same subnet as the router interface.
When troubleshooting, turn off any other devices that might be using the internet connection and reboot the router.
Try to connect with the problem machine only.
One other thing to look at is to reset the winsock catalogue. Launch a command prompt and type netsh
then I think its 'winsock', then reset. Restart the machine and try again. Thinking back to when it may have stopped working where there any new applications added, especially Internet Security Suite type nasties?
gimme a shout if you want me to pop-over.
startrek.steve
17-10-09, 09:05 AM
Delete the usb dongles driver on Claires pc, reboot and re-install it. That sometimes works.
Steve
BTW has Claires pc got auto Dhcp enabled? if not, it wont be asking for an IP, is it Seeing the router at all over the radio?
Luckypants
17-10-09, 11:21 AM
Thanks for the suggestions guys.
Startrek.Steve if you read the thread you will see I tried that / answered your question.
Will try a static IP address, after that it will be a re-install of everything! This looping task worries me and I cannot resolve it, everything I turn up on the net relating to this task looping points at a virus that corrupts the Registry :mad:
fizzwheel
17-10-09, 12:15 PM
Mike sometimes its just easier and less hassle just to bite the bullet and re-install from scratch.
You might spend hours and hours faffing about with it and still not fix the rebooting problem.
If it is a virus, this might be worth a try
Go onto the mcaffe website and download their free stinger utility. You'll need to make a bootable disk i.e. floppy disk, copy it onto that and then boot it up and run the stinger.exe if its one of the more common virus' the stinger will shift it for you.
In your position if you have all the original disks, I'd just nuke it and re-install Windows TBH.
garrystr
17-10-09, 12:20 PM
Thanks for the suggestions guys.
Startrek.Steve if you read the thread you will see I tried that / answered your question.
Will try a static IP address, after that it will be a re-install of everything! This looping task worries me and I cannot resolve it, everything I turn up on the net relating to this task looping points at a virus that corrupts the Registry :mad:
Sounds like a virus to me and a pretty nasty one, had similar sort of problems with my moms Laptop, Had to get some help from the IT people at work, but still couldn't sort it out. Tried Clean install of Windoze, still no Joy. Installed Linux on my moms computer in the end out of sheer frustration (plus I'd always wanted to give it a go) and all is well. Especially good as my mom can't download rubbish onto her computer any more and I don't have to spend hours fixing it. Now using it on my own laptop as I have always hated Microsoft stuff. :smt090
Linux is free too and if you are only surfing the net, and doing office stuff, everything you want will be available for free. You don't get viruses either, and you don't suffer spyware problems.
I know it isn't the solution you were looking for, sorry, but a least I got a plug in for the little guy =P~
dont get me started on the MS vs Linix vs Apple thing. All have good and bad points, a glitch with a pc is no reason to go switching.
garrystr
17-10-09, 01:11 PM
dont get me started on the MS vs Linix vs Apple thing. All have good and bad points, a glitch with a pc is no reason to go switching.
Think the OS argument is done to death in other places, but ooh I do enjoy a good debate. Agreed though, I use a Mac, a PC with Windoze and A PC with Linux. What I use for fun though is an SV :thumbsup:
xXBADGERXx
17-10-09, 08:55 PM
Can`t be bothered to read every post in here so this may have been mentioned before , on Claire`s laptop , take the USB Dongle out of the port it is in , stick it in another USB port and reboot the machine . Sometimes the USB port itself can have a problem with it that I won`t go into too much detail right now as it may confuse the issue .
Luckypants
17-10-09, 09:15 PM
OK well static IP Address did fix the problem with not getting an IP address but there was still no data transport. So I went for a complete wipe and re-install of Win XP at SP3 (higher than current) then installed the wireless support at latest driver level. Speedy is back online and machine is waaaaayyyyy faster than before. I think that the looping task was indeed the cause of not getting data through, the driver was not getting timely access to the cpu to pick up the wireless traffic. Price of a basic scheduling algorithm on Wintel machines.
So thanks to the tech-heads for all the help, I hate to go for the new install as it seems like a cop out, but I do not know enough about Windows to sort out complex issues. Now z/OS mainframe assembler, CICS, IMS, z/OS systems programming, I'm your man....:smt024
Speedy Claire
17-10-09, 09:24 PM
Yay i`m online again!!!! :smt026
Many thanks to everyone who`s taken the time to reply to this thread, your advice has been much appreciated.
Big thanks to Luckypants (obviously) and also to Flymo for your help today.
El Saxo
17-10-09, 09:45 PM
Yay i`m online again!!!! :smt026
Oh dear God what have we done?
:wink: Only kiddin, good to have you back Claire :D
Yay i`m online again!!!! :smt026
Many thanks to everyone who`s taken the time to reply to this thread, your advice has been much appreciated.
Big thanks to Luckypants (obviously) and also to Flymo for your help today.
anytime.
Speedy Claire
18-10-09, 04:05 PM
Oh dear God what have we done?
:wink: Only kiddin, good to have you back Claire :D
lol :D I`ve got loads of uni work to catch up on so I think i`ll be quite busy with that for a while. Was getting a bit worried bout not having the online access!
TheOnlyNemesis
18-10-09, 04:11 PM
lrn2read, haha
Speedy Claire
18-10-09, 04:19 PM
lrn2read, haha
I figured out what your text speak said so I must be able to read lol. I should`ve maybe said that part of my course is online learning where I have to use the university`s blackboard computer thingey :confused:
TheOnlyNemesis
18-10-09, 04:28 PM
I figured out what your text speak said so I must be able to read lol. I should`ve maybe said that part of my course is online learning where I have to use the university`s blackboard computer thingey :confused:
oh, the lrn2read was at me, i answered without reading whole thread and you'd already replied saying back online so i just editted it to lrn2read at myself
-Ralph-
18-10-09, 05:13 PM
So thanks to the tech-heads for all the help, I hate to go for the new install as it seems like a cop out
It is a cop out, but it can save you so much time and swearing, and it if the machine was needing it anyway, what the hell :p
Luckypants
19-10-09, 09:35 AM
Yeah thanks for that Ralph. :rolleyes: At least with toy computers like these, there is no harm in a re-install, nothing to major to lose.
I know you have fixed it now but no where is there a mention of a firewall, these tend to block stuff like WiFi dongles, have spent many hours trying to work out why wifi no worky before :rolleyes:
Speedy Claire
19-10-09, 04:35 PM
I think that was checked out TEC but thanks anyway :D
Luckypants
19-10-09, 10:42 PM
I know you have fixed it now but no where is there a mention of a firewall, these tend to block stuff like WiFi dongles, have spent many hours trying to work out why wifi no worky before :rolleyes:
Was turned off at step #1. To me that is a no brainer and hence forgot to mention it :D
And no it is not fixed, but the problem was removed LOL
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