Vista Refusing To Recognise Network Connection?

[jon bda]

Hey all got given a laptop to have a look at as it was freezing at the Vista splash screen, got all that sorted and have now encountered another prob.

All of a sudden, its decided to ignore the network connection, even though its telling me it has both local and internet connection in the taskbar?. Nothing works (IE8, Windows Update etc) and running the Vista diagnostic tool just tells me it has limited connectivity...everything else on the network is going fine...

[Mblaster]

Run an ipconfig and check that the settings shown are correct. The important ones are IP address, DNS server, and default gateway.

Often if it's reporting that it's connected to the internet but it's not actually working then it's a DNS problem. Trying pinging a known IP address (on the internet e.g. 216.239.59.103 [google.co.uk]). If the ping works, then you are connected to the internet, and it's likely DNS problem.

[CWH]

You say it was 'given', where did it come from? It might well have been locked down previously which might explain the lack of connection.

Colin

[watercooled]

Try booting a Linux LiveCD or something and see if you can establish a connection with that - that will help you narrow down the cause, if it still doesn't work it's probably a hardware fault, if it does then software.

[quackers]

As said, are you getting an IP address when you do an ipconfig?

Have you checked the device manager just to make sure the network card has drivers/isn't disabled etc?

[Ben Rogers]

If it isn't getting an IP from DHCP then set it manually, in the same range as the router and put the default gateway and DNS as router's IP.

If the drivers weren't installed or the device was disabled, surely it wouldn't appear in the system tray? but I suppose it is worth a look in the dm as it doesn't take 10 seconds.

[quackers]

It's vista, it can play all sorts of tricks with you

[Ben Rogers]

It's vista, it can play all sorts of tricks with you

Too right...I hate vista and I am currently posting this from 64bit lol, I recently installed 7 64bit on a neighbours PC and it is sooo much better and smoother to use. I will be getting 7 soon as I can afford it without a doubt as I am stick off vista, browsers stopping responding for no reason etc.

[quackers]

We have 7 enterprise on our work laptops and generally it's very nice, IE 8 does stop responding on a regular basis, then comes back to life.

I'm a Linux man now , Firefox all the way for me

[Ben Rogers]

I never use IE, only Firefox and Chrome usually and occasionally Safari. I don't have Opera anymore which I used to like but I always get problems with IE and I don't think its safe to use for certain sites where active x is embedded.

Sometimes Firefox just stops responding and I look in Task Manager and it is using 50% CPU - one core of the CPU and it isn't even doing anything that you can see so god knows what's going on. It is very annoying though.

[watercooled]

I never use IE, only Firefox and Chrome usually and occasionally Safari. I don't have Opera anymore which I used to like but I always get problems with IE and I don't think its safe to use for certain sites where active x is embedded.

Sometimes Firefox just stops responding and I look in Task Manager and it is using 50% CPU - one core of the CPU and it isn't even doing anything that you can see so god knows what's going on. It is very annoying though.

Firefox isn't multi-threaded so it can only use one core. Good thing about that is it generally doesn't make your PC unresponsive if only one core is loaded.

[Ben Rogers]

Oh right. This PC is pretty old now as its a core2duo E6850 @ stock lol but it does slow down a fair bit when one core is fully loaded.

[Zak33]

Hey all got given a laptop to have a look at as it was freezing at the Vista splash screen, got all that sorted and have now encountered another prob.

All of a sudden, its decided to ignore the network connection, even though its telling me it has both local and internet connection in the taskbar?. Nothing works (IE8, Windows Update etc) and running the Vista diagnostic tool just tells me it has limited connectivity...everything else on the network is going fine...

back to original post... by opening poster.
jon.. you may have one of the iritating network cards that sometimes sees Vista.. and sometimes doesn't.
I had ths exact thing with my friend and neighbour.. I thought it was the router I'd installed... so I tried two more.. nope.
Turned out to be crap drivers for the wifi card AND the network card too.

What yuo COULD do is try Windows Update and allow it to install the MS versions of the drivers.. and rol back if it's no help.

Atheros was the chipset.

[Singh400]

...and running the Vista diagnostic tool just tells me it has limited connectivity...

Does it not give you an option to fix it? Normally the trouble shooting wizard does. Or have I gotten used to Windows 7 being totally awesome.

[watercooled]

Firefox isn't multi-threaded so it can only use one core. Good thing about that is it generally doesn't make your PC unresponsive if only one core is loaded.

Oh hang on I might be wrong there. I've done a bit of searching and it appears new versions are, to some extent, multithreaded. But I think one tab can have a maximum of one thread so that would still explain the one core fully loaded problem - one tab may be causing it.

[0iD]

I got this in Vista Ultimate x64 from time to time. Had to delete all the network connections & re-boot to let windows find & config the connection again.