Home networking

[Geronimo]

Suddenly my wife's laptop does not recognize the wireless network. I am using 801.11b all hardware from Linksys. I even tried a new PCMCIA wireless card. No good. Any thoughts?

When i say it does not recognize it the config utility is loaded (but not in sys tray) but I dont seem to be able to get the laptop to recognize the card. drivers do not install properly.

[sorahl]

what OS are you using?

[Geronimo]

On that machine Winows 98 SE.

[sorahl]

Can you at all upgrade it to xp? I hate win98 but didn't realize how much until i installed xp. have converted all the computers in my house and at my office to xp now and they run 110% percent better.
if not.. try first, removing all networking components, then reboot. reinstall win98, reboot, then reinstall the network (but not the wifi yet). get the network going wired, then reinstall the wifi.
Sounds like a lot of work but it is a lot of "do a little, and wait...then do some more".

John

[Neil Derryberry]

I agree on the XP solution.

A word of warning on wireless.... if you use linksys' default wireless config on your AP or router, anyone with a laptop/pda, wireless card and a car can get on your network. WEP is helpful, but hacked. secure yourself by changing the setting for "allow broadcast ssid to associate" to no... you will have to specify the ssid on each machine you want to connect to your network, but that is some extra security for you.

additionally, turn on MAC address filtering. This will prevent the occasional "war driver" from seeing you, unless he is really determined.

[Geronimo]

no room for XP on thsi laptop. As for the rest thanks but lets fix this problem first. I hate to complicate things. But I do appreciate it.

[MarkA]

What about Windows 2000?

[Geronimo]

Not room really for a n upgrade but thanks.

[Bogy]

Geronimo, let's clarify. I'm not real experienced with wireless, I've had plenty of experience with computers not recognizing cards, networks, or each other. Am I understanding you correctly, that the laptop does not recognize the card? Did it previously recognize the card and suddenly stop? You tried a second card, and that did not work either? The drivers are not loading properly? I take you are getting those wonderful messages that tell you the computer can not find the appropriate driver. This may seem like a stupid suggestion, and it may point out exactly how stupid I can be at times, but are you absolutely sure you are trying to load the right drivers? I spent several hours one time trying to install a network card before I realized I had mixed up a couple of cards and the floppys the drivers were on and was trying to load the wrong drivers with the wrong card. I even switched cards to see if the other one would work, and also switched the floppy and was still trying to use the wrong drivers. Duh. Good luck.

[Geronimo]

YEs the problem seems to be that the laptop does not recognize the card. It did recognize it for amny months and then stopped.

I am not getting any wonderful messages. The laptop simply does not see the card (even though it is inserted correctly, power light on etc.). I can manually install the drivers but when I next reboot the device is not listed.

I am absolutely, positively certain I am loading the right drivers. I am loading from the CD and the particular card is available from a list. moreover the laptop should just see the card.

I am mystified. A desktop on the network uses a USB connection. I amy try installing that. It would not be a pretty solution but it is better than no network connectivity.

[gcutler]

Lets get the diagnostics straight.

1) Tried 2 different cards in the PC Card slot (theory, it isn't the card)

A) Is there another slot available to put the Wireless card in to see if it is all PC Card slots

B) Can you put an non-network card PC Card in the slot (modem or something else) to also check that it isn't just Network cards not working properly there.

C) Worse come to worse, go into the hardware settings and delete the drivers for the PCMCIA/PC Card system and the devices that use the PC Card slot. If given choice DELETE the drivers. When reboot, it may re-recognize the components. unless the PCMCIA/PC card component is the one the is fried???

D) If any service packs not applied, try them and maybe things wll work better?

[Geronimo]

A. No.

B. Have no other PCMCIA cards. May try that if USB does not work. Slot passes diagmostics from Compaq

C. may try


D. all SPs are in place.

[Rick_EE]

Can you see the driver in device manager when the card is inserted?
If you can, remove it before re-installing.
If you can't, reboot into safe mode. You should be able to see the driver then. Now remove it. Re-install in normal mode.

[Geronimo]

No you cannot see the driver. It does not laod.
I have tried safe mode situation. It did not help

Thanks

[gcutler]

If none of this works, a OS reinstall may be needed?

[Bogy]

I'd agree on the OS reinstall. If going into Device Manager and deleting everything and then rebooting doesn't work I would reinstall the OS.

[MikeW]

I had a similar problem using the original CD on ME. I downloaded the latest drivers from Linksys, and everything came up. Only problems was, the drivers are too large to fit onto a floppy. Had to burn a CD to get the drivers onto the laptop.

Good Luck.

[Geronimo]

Well here it worked for some time. The drivers that worked last week should still work. But I will check for a driver update---always a good idea.

[Bogy]

Geronimo, the my reason for advising the OS reinstall is that a few years ago I had a modem do the same thing. It had been working fine for months, and all of sudden I couldn't connect anymore. I spent days going over all the settings and reloading drivers etc. Finally, I reloaded the OS (Win 98 I believe) and everything worked just like it was supposed to. What happened, I have no idea. But somehow, something got corrupted and the only thing that cured it was doing the reload.

[Geronimo]

It is the reinstallation of all the apps that scares me but sometimes life is not easy.

[Bogy]

No need to reinstall the apps. You might want to do a backup, but the OS will install right over itself and not bother the other programs at all. I've done this several times when things have gotten screwed up and never lost anything. Now that I think about it, I had a problem with the networking on my daughter's roommate's computer, and ended up doing the reinstall on her computer. She has a Gateway, and in using the restore disk from Gateway did restore everything that had come on the computer originally, but I did have to reload some of the other programs she had added later. Just reinstalling the OS should not cause that much disruption. Good Luck.

[gcutler]

Actually you would want to reinstall you apps, as the settings and updated drivers may be put back to default. You would not loose much data (but you should go into Outlook express and backup/export your address book and calendar and mail folders, so just in case you do lose anything, that would be the part that might get lost). And you will need to reapply all the service packs you have applied over the months/years (hopefully you can still get them via Internet Explorer Update)

[Geronimo]

An OS reinstall did not work. Strangely just before I did it the laptop actually displayed the cofig utility and tried to load the driver but hung up while searching for the network.

After the reinstall I finally got back to that state (after repeated installations and de installations of the drivers etc) but it always hung up. I now have a laptop with a USB wireless adapter. Not elegant but it works.

[gcutler]

Funny, My Primary test server Dell Dimension 4100 1GHz and 512MB RAM running W2K Adv Svr crashed (I was tinkering and got a little out of hand). So I guess I was doing a OS reinstall the same time you were :D, I decided to do a Ghost of the system, so next time it isn't so bad.

[Rick_EE]

Looks like your card has failed.

[Geronimo]

More than one card was involved so taht clearly was not it.

I am on the net now using a USB adaptewr in lieu of the card but it is not showing up on the network. I tried the TCP/IP reinstall. That did not do it either. Mystified at this end but thanks for all the suggestions.

[James_F]

Ah the joys of Windows 98. Did you try Linksys and see if they can help? Im surprised that the USB adapter didn't work. :shrug:

[Geronimo]

It sort of did James. I am at least on the internet