Win XP and connectivity issue.

[The Fish]

hi all.

Not my strongest point networking, so some advice would be appreciated. Situation is:

Router in shed 5 m from house. Linksy but with a cradle so not getting too hot. PC1 in shed hard wired. PC2, an old Dell P4 Intel, running XP home 5 m from router using USB dongle. No connectivity...not getting IP address I think as it says 0.0.0.0. in dongle software.

Tested USB wireless dongle at my home on main and test machine, worked fine although only 1m from my router. Can pick up wireless next to PC2 on two other devices so reckon signal getting there.

Thinking its down to PC2 itself. In poor shape I think, no SP2 or 3, a/v out of date etc. SO I am thinking maybe the Winsock fix may do it? Seems a candiadate for having that corrupted. Any other ideas?

Oh and PC2 has now been tested in shed hard wired and getting connection, well apparently. Does that blow the Winsock theory out?

Thanks if you can help.

[oldboy47]

Silly question really but have you tried another usb port on the PC? If you launch DOS and run Ipconfig can you 'see' your other network devices?

[Jonj1611]

Firewall blocking connection perhaps?

Additionally can you see your router from the wireless connections icon?

If so and you cant connect and your using anything higher than WEP, you will need SP2 and above.

Regards
Jon

[The Fish]

Guys, thanks both for the advice.

From memory, as I have been on it for over a week, mates on hols, ipconfig showed the router.

Did check the firewall, but will do so again.Don't believe it is SP2 [yet] so will recheck.

Hoping a fresh approach will do it this time. Any feedback on the winsock thing anyone?

[oldboy47]

You might also be screened from a wireless signal by the fabric of the wall and anything else between the Dell USB dongle. The fact that you can achieve connection when hard wired would suggest either wireless comms/screening/hardware issue with the dongle (which works in other machines).
Also check the router - is it set to allow the connection? Is wireless turned on? As Jonj said - can you see the router from the dongle software?

[The Fish]

@oldboy;

Thanks for your input. No I don't believe I can see the router on pc2. The dongle software shows no ip address, which makes me think it's not seeing it. And the fact that I can pick up the router on a laptop and my smartphone by pc2 indicates the signal is getting there, so no issues with screening.

I have yet to check the hardwire is doing the job, but to be fair that's something I should be able to trust as my mate says it is, so presumably he has got on the net with it.

Gonna recheck the firewall. Start with the basics again - ipconfig etc. Again any advice with the winsock thing would be appreciated - have searched around for more on the web. Its all good, pushing my weakest area of knowledge, networking.

[oddjob]

It may be worth uninstalling the software for the usb dongle and rebooting before reinstalling the software for the dongle again
Have you checked which service pack the pc is running? if it is below sp2 it would definitely pay to get sp 2 installed - unless u hard wire the pc into the router to do this you can download sp2 to a usb device and install it that way.

to check if winsock is corrupt -----> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811259

Really doubt its a winsock issue as you can connect hard wired to the router and get online but worth checking just to rule it out.

Out of curiosity when you installed the software for the dongle did you notice a check box anywhere in the installation that said allow windows to manage my connection or something similar to that??
which icons do you have in the taskbar that relate to wireless connections? do you have one for the dell software and the windows icon??

[The Fish]

@oddjob.

Thanks for the input feller. I note the points about winsock - as it is working now with a hardwire I thought that may be the case. Investigating your link on it anyway ta.

And on reinstall I did not notice a box coming up on the dongle. No dell icons in task bar I can see.