Boss' Dell laptop refuses to work with her home Tiscali router

[MarcLister]

My boss has a Dell laptop that she uses at home to dial-in to her work computer so she can work from home. She's been having trouble getting the wireless (I think the wireless) to work with the Tiscali router she and her husband have got.

Her husband is fairly decent with IT but he's not been able to solve the issue and she's asked me to look into it. I'm going to ring Dell on Monday morning to see if they've got any ideas or have heard of other Dell laptop users experiencing the same things with Tiscali.

I was wondering if anyone here has had the same problem or has had to fix it for someone else and knows what I could do to get things working again.

I've got her husband to check the network connections and proxy settings and they're OK so without ringing Dell or getting new information I'm at a loss. Any help or suggestions would be most useful.

[Fortune117]

Can it connect do another wireless network?

[Antagram]

I don't know what make and model Tiscali provide, but could the wireless MAC filter be on? Can't remember what correct name is.

[MarcLister]

Can it connect do another wireless network?

Haven't asked. I'll try and find out tomorrow. We don't have one at work so that might be a bit hard to find out.

I don't know what make and model Tiscali provide, but could the wireless MAC filter be on? Can't remember what correct name is.

I'll ask about that. Something makes me think my boss told me that she's tried plugging the laptop into the router with a cable which makes things a little more interesting.

[Fortune117]

Questions to ask your boss :

1) Does it connect to the network but not to the internet (ie, Can you see the Network on the wireless search but when you open a web page it shows 'Page cannot be displayed'

2) Is there a little yellow triangle over the network symbol?

If 1 and 2 is Yes then I would go onto the Router BIOS and check for MAC adress filtering.

[Phage]

Also what OS ? xp ?
Had a similar issue with a work laptop. Turns out that xp did not get the WPA2 algorithm until SP3. Patch cable the only way.

[MarcLister]

Questions to ask your boss :

1) Does it connect to the network but not to the internet (ie, Can you see the Network on the wireless search but when you open a web page it shows 'Page cannot be displayed'

2) Is there a little yellow triangle over the network symbol?

If 1 and 2 is Yes then I would go onto the Router BIOS and check for MAC adress filtering.

Will ask tomorrow.

Also what OS ? xp ?
Had a similar issue with a work laptop. Turns out that xp did not get the WPA2 algorithm until SP3. Patch cable the only way.

XP yes. I think she's tried a cable connection to the router. The problem I have is there's so many questions I need answers to but I can't get them.

[killie99]

Is the IP address defined in the laptop? You'll need to ensure the laptop is set to get IP address etc through DHCP.