Wireless connection problems

[IBM]

I'm pretty sure I've already asked for help on this, months and months ago, before I finally gave up and laid to rest the hope of ever getting my wireless laptop to connect to the network. But here I am again, glutton for punishment, wondering if anyone new might have the solution to my problems. All I want to do is browse the internet from the bedroom....

I have a tiny Sony laptop with a 11b network card installed. It picks up the network fine running off my linksys wireless router, but can't do anything with it. I can't acess the net, and I can't access the local network. No security issues, or signal issues, as the network registers every time.

Running Windows XP home, trying to connect to a WinXP Pro network, so I'm not too bothered if I can't access the local network because of security considerations, but the lack of internet bugs me no end.

I've tried manually setting the network properties for the connection, IP, DNS, gateway etc. I've had the firewall on and off, I've dropped and reconnected the connections through ipconfig, I've bridged connections, dropped them, disabled them, re-enabled them. I've attempted to create networks, then deleted them. And still nothing. I've even used the system recovery disks to nuke the system back to it's original state.

And you know what the really, really irritating bit is (apart from me going on and on and on)? It's the fact that ages and ages ago, for one glorious afternoon, I managed to surf the web from the laptop on the wireless network. But I can't remember how I did it, and I've never been able to replicate it.

If anyone knows of any good utilities, websites or has any good hints and tips, please let me know, I'm desperate.

Lastly, just because I can, and it rocks

[IBM]

Oh yeah, and I've not had a problem connecting my other laptop with a wireless card running WinXP Pro to the network, nor with a G4 Powerbook or a G5 desktop both running airport connections.

Anyone?

[peterb]

First things first - when you run ipconfig, are you getting the expected figures - ie a valid IP address in your network, a valid subnet mask, and the correct gateway address (which should be the address of the router)?

If not, are you using DHCP from your router, does it have a large enough scope to issue an address to the Sony device? OR can you set up the IP address manually (within the range of your network) and set up the gateway address and get it to connect that way. Is it picking up the DNS server address correctly (should be if the router is set up properly)?

Whoops - just re-read the post and see that you have done some of those things... so - is the router set to accept any device, or does it require the MAC address of the Sony's wireless card to validate the connection? And just a thought, have you tried clearing the DNS cache on the Sony?

[GDVS]

the correct gateway address (which should be the address of the router)?

I'd say this is the most likely culprit, if that's right then check your subnet mask (most likely should be 255.255.255.0).

[IBM]

PeterB

The router is set to accept any device with the correct network name and password.

You mean ipconfig/flushdns? Yeah, done that, no joy.

If I start from scratch and allow the system to automatically asign my DNS settings, I get some strange IP addresses way out of the 192.169.0.xx range. It never gets it right. This is why I first started trying to manually assign my DNS settings for the card, but no luck.

I'll make a note of the auto assigned numbers next time I switch it on, and will post them when I get a chance.

GDVS

Subnet mask always set to 255.255.255.0 on the system, but doesn't seem to make any difference.


Anyone else care to pitch some advice?

[peterb]

PeterB

...

If I start from scratch and allow the system to automatically asign my DNS settings, I get some strange IP addresses way out of the 192.169.0.xx range. It never gets it right. This is why I first started trying to manually assign my DNS settings for the card, but no luck.

I'll make a note of the auto assigned numbers next time I switch it on, and will post them when I get a chance.

....

I occasionally get that with Win 2K - defaults to 169.something. Usually when it doesn't see the DHCP server (which is in my router). Does leazd me to think that it might not be recognising the gateway, as GDVS suggested.

[Splash]

I may be off on a tangent here, but are they all a member of the same workgroup/domain? This shouldn't affect internet access, but I've known it to previously.

Check that you have the correct encryption, ssid and passkey setup on your laptop's wireless connection.

All of the above may be way off target, but they have to be worth checking.

[Blackspeech]

I had exactly the same problem with my USR 9106 (which has died since).

I swapped to a DLINK and connected once then nothing. Now, laptop and desktop are both fine, but I had terrible problems, same as you describe.

I called DLINK support - they have real people answering phones

Tried loadsa stuff and nothing worked. Then on second call to them after much DNS stuff etc the guy asked me if I had i-tunes, which I did as when I downloaded qtime it was bundled with it. he told me it messes around with DNS settings and wants to direct traffic.

While he was on I reset all the settings as he said and then removed i-tunes. It has never failed since. That little varmint caused me much aggravation!

If this doesn't help - apologies.

[IBM]

Blackspeech...i've had software connection problems before with systems, which is why I went and kicked the system back to scratch with the restore disks....didn't help...cheers for the effort though.

Splash ... yeah, they're all part of the same workgroup, but as you say, it shouldn't affect the net access either way. Actually connecting to the broadcasted network isn't the problem. My system picks it up and let's me know that I'm connected, but I can't do anything other than that. It's just plain weird. You'd think that if the laptop could connect to the wireless network sufficiently to pass the WEP key, it would be enough to be able to ping the router, but nooooooooo

PeterB ... yeah, 169.something is what I'm getting too. I'll check the settings (AGAIN) and see if I've got them all set up.

I've just noticed something about my desktop, it's got an 'Internet Connection' setting within the Network Connections screen, which as it says 'Allows you to connect to the Internet through a shared connection on another computer'. I'm pretty sure the laptop doesn't display this in it's network connection screen. How do I go about creating this? Is it set up automatically when you run the Network setup wizard? Is this another obvious thing that I'm missing?

[herulach]

Blackspeech...i've had software connection problems before with systems, which is why I went and kicked the system back to scratch with the restore disks....didn't help...cheers for the effort though.

Splash ... yeah, they're all part of the same workgroup, but as you say, it shouldn't affect the net access either way. Actually connecting to the broadcasted network isn't the problem. My system picks it up and let's me know that I'm connected, but I can't do anything other than that. It's just plain weird. You'd think that if the laptop could connect to the wireless network sufficiently to pass the WEP key, it would be enough to be able to ping the router, but nooooooooo

PeterB ... yeah, 169.something is what I'm getting too. I'll check the settings (AGAIN) and see if I've got them all set up.

I've just noticed something about my desktop, it's got an 'Internet Connection' setting within the Network Connections screen, which as it says 'Allows you to connect to the Internet through a shared connection on another computer'. I'm pretty sure the laptop doesn't display this in it's network connection screen. How do I go about creating this? Is it set up automatically when you run the Network setup wizard? Is this another obvious thing that I'm missing?

I think it appears automagically if you have a upnp router. When it gets an ip address look in the network status, if it says something like automatically configured manual address rather than assigned by DHCP you arent get an IP address right, which is gonna be a router problem i would guess. Unless theres something else knocking around with a dhcp server that its seeing first. Are all your other machines connected wirelessly or wired? I have seen routers that dont assign ips to wireless devices unless you specifically say its ok for security reasons.

[IBM]

Both wired and wireless, although the other wireless connections have been WinXP Pro or Apple OSX, so I was wondering if it might be a limitation of XP Home edition. I guess I could access the router and hard code in the acceptance for the laptop based on it's IP or MAC address, but it's unlikely this will have any affect since the rest of the laptops access the network without any problems. I'll try anything at the moment.

[GDVS]

A 169.* IP address would be a random assignment from Windows, it's not getting anything through DHCP at all.

This may be overkill but I'd be tempted to install Ethereal and see what's going on. Capture all traffic on the interface while you do ipconfig /release then ipconfig/renew.

Filter on ports 67 & 68 and ignore everything before the DHCP discover packet from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. That's your machine asking if there's a DHCP server out there.

You should then get a DHCP offer packet from the IP of your router, if yuo examine the packet in ethereal you'll be able to see the offered IP address, subnet mask, and router (default gateway).

This is then followed by DHDP request and DHCP ack packets but there should be no need to go into those, if the first part works then they should too.

If you don't get a DHCP offer packet from your router (I suspect you won't) then you need to check the router DHCP server config.

[IBM]

I get the feeling that I've been getting errors when I try ipconfig/release (cannot do something with the conection/adaptor while the media is disconnected) but that might just be for the LAN connection.

I've had a few more ideas that's I'd like to try out before I start messing about with Ethereal (thanks for the linkage btw) but I'll hold it as a last resort. Ta.

[GDVS]

One more suggestion, are you using the vendor supplied configuration utilities or Microsoft WZC? I generally have more luck with the vendor supplied ones than MS (exception: Belkin software sucks and the authors will rot for all eternity just above Judas Iscariot in the sixth level of Hell).

[Splash]

Is there a DHCP request from your machine in the router logs? Can your router even see your machine when it's connected? Your machine doesn't have a firewall blocking all ICMP etc stuff does it?

And GDVS - get to work!

[GDVS]

Can your router even see your machine when it's connected?

Good point, if it's a WRT54G or one of the other variants yuo should be able to view all connected machines as well as all active DHCP leases through the web admin ages (under status->wireless->ARP something I believe).

And GDVS - get to work!

I 'm always working! Got to rebuild the bloody mail migrator as a Windows machine but I'm refusing to remove Linux until it's got 512MB RAM.