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Network wireless laptop?

Laptop can't see secure wireless network. Can you?

  • PC laptop wireless issues: Can’t connect to my secure in-house wireless network. Any smart people able to help? Hey Team Internet, I’ve got a laptop, and I can’t make it connect to my wireless network. The wireless connection requires users to be added manually by inputting their fixed and/or wireless MAC addresses. I have added those addresses, and they have certifiably been correctly inputted. The network is not password protected, but will only let pre-authorized computers connect. My laptop is an Acer TravelMate 280 running Windows XP. The router is a Linksys. In the “Choose a wireless network” box, the network doesn’t even show up as an option. It’s not a matter of distance – the signal is being broadcast from within my house. When in other locations, I can connect to other wireless networks without any trouble. I can connect fine via a direct plug-in via Ethernet cable. I have another PC laptop that connects fine to the same wireless network. There’s also a new Macbook Pro that can connect fine to the wireless. Those are the clues to the puzzle! Any ideas how to make this work?

  • Answer:

    I have a travelmate c110 and it uses the intel chipset. I just went to intel's website and downloaded their drivers. Those may work better if it's an intel chipset on your acer. Also regarding the Linksys, chek to see if you can load it with firmware from http://www.dd-wrt.com

Milkman Dan at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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Is your wireless router broadcasting a wireless protocol that your laptop can't detect (ie. your router is 802.11 G and the wireless card in your laptop is 802.11 B) ?

Burhanistan

My laptop's wireless card is 802.11 b/g, and my router's box says "Up to 22Mbps and 802.11b Compatible." Sooo...?

Milkman Dan

Have you tried disabling security temporarily to ensure that the laptop can connect wirelessly AT ALL? If it can, then we can isolate the issue to the router configuration.

Rock Steady

Is your router broadcasting the SSID? If not, the laptop may not show the network as available. Try turning on the SSID broadcast on your router, see if that works.

shinynewnick

Make sure the wireless router is set to broadcast the network name (SSID). Try temporarily disabling the MAC address filtering to see if your adapter can connect. (The router will remember the MAC address list even if you disable filtering so you won't have to reenter them.)

tresbizzare

Once again I type too slowly..

tresbizzare

Try adding the SSID manually in your "preferred wireless networks"?

k8t

Did you put in the correct MAC address of the laptop? My mom's Sony Vaio has 2 MAC addresses. One for the built-in ethernet and one for the built-in 802.11g wireless. I have a similar setup and made the mistake of putting in the MAC address for ethernet. Off the top of my head, I don't remember how you can check....

Cog

"... Off the top of my head, I don't remember how you can check...." posted by Cog at 11:14 PM PST on January 21 In a WinXP command prompt window, type ipconfig /all to have a list of all active interfaces on your machine, and their associated IP and mac addresses, and related information listed. Copy and paste the output of that command back to this thread using the pre tag, for additional diagnostic assistance. I'll check this thread for the next 24 hours for updates.

paulsc

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