A few days ago, my wireless internet (connected via a PCMCIA adapter, as the laptop I am using is quite ancient) was working fine, I turned the computer off for the night, and the following day, when I booted up, it recognized that my home network was there and available, but simply would not connect. If I tried to, it would say "not connected" in the Windows Zero Config app, and I had previously disabled the software that came with the adapter. I tried the computer on another network, to be sure that it wasn't a problem with my network or router, and the problem persisted. I then bought a new wireless adapter, this time USB, to rule out a problem with my card or PCMCIA slot, and nothing changed. One thing I did notice though was that while playing around, enabling the adapter software and disabling Windows Zero Config and vice versa, the software for the PCMCIA slot adapter did not pick up a signal and seemed generally non-responsive, while the USB adapter's software picked the network up and claimed to connect to it - except the internet remained non-functional. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be and how I could go about fixing it? I'll be happy to provide any additional information that might be helpful... Thanks!

Hi
and welcome to the WTT forums

Sorry to hear of the network problems
Here's a quick check list that you might find useful:

1 Power cycle your wireless router/Gateway...pull out power plug, wait 3 mins, insert power plug, reboot computer and see how you go.
2 disable then enable network connections
3 Repair network connections
4 check encryption password/phrase is correctly set up for WPA and matches exactly that of your router
5 Check that your software firewall is allowing access to your network
6 open Network connections, right click on your network, click on properties, double click on TCP/Ip and set IP and DNS server to auto
7 Check for problems in Device Manager (Yellow or Red markers) Uninstall wireless network card drivers, reboot and reinstall drivers then a final reboot.
Regards
paws

Thanks for your quick reply! I've tried those things and haven't gotten anywhere yet... I also recently tried hard-wiring the connection to see if I can at least get online that way, and so far it hasn't worked... but I haven't played around with it much, and sometimes my computer is touchy... Any other suggestions? I think I'm going to format the hard drive and reinstall Windows to give everything a truly fresh start...

adamm1114,

You mentioned that you tried your computer on another wireless network with no luck - but have you tried a different computer on the wireless network you're having problems with? I ask because perhaps the problem is with the WiFi network rather than your PC. Is the wireless network you're having problems with your personal network or is it in an office or environment being managed by someone else? I asked because it's possible that changes were made to that WiFi network which are preventing you from connecting.

Do you have any Antivirus or Internet Security software installed on your laptop? If so, what is the make/version of this software. I've seen automatic updates to McAfee screw up settings, preventing access to the Internet. Have you installed, changed, reconfigured anything on your laptop recently (prior to this inability to connect wirelessly)? If you're in a corporate or business environment, are there other users with the same PCMCIA WiFi card you have? Being able to swap your existing card with a known working card would quickly tell you if there's a hardware problem with your card. While buying a USB card might seem like a better solution - it adds to the confusion as to WHY you're old configuration stopped working. I've found that USB WiFi adapters, modems, etc. tend to be tricky and problematic due to all of the miniport network drivers they require to emulate normal network hardware via USB. I guess I would try to first figure out why your old PCMCIA card stopped working before complicating things with a new piece of hardware - especially if the problem is with something on your PC (driver, hardware, settings,etc) and NOT the PCMCIA adapter.

The fact that your old confiuration could SEE the WiFi SSID, but could not connect tells me that there may be some security configuration issue on either the WiFi router, your laptop or both.

Sorry for throwing so much information at you - I'm just thinking out loud as to what I'd look at in an attempt to solve this problem.

- John