I have a small network in my house, a wireless router which is connected to a desktop, and I have a laptop which I generally connect wirelessly with. I use Windows XP, service pack 2.
On Friday afternoon, with everything normal, I shut down my laptop.
On Sunday morning, I booted up the laptop - my wireless connection could not acquire a network address. I plugged it in wired, and the direct LAN connection still will not acquire a network address.
I uninstalled Cisco VPN software from my laptop, that didn’t change anything. I uninstalled AVG Internet Securty 8.0, that didn’t help either. I disabled Windows Firewall. No change. My LAN connection Properties is down to what I think is the bare bones minimum - it uses Client for Microsoft Networks, File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft, QoS Packet Scheduler, and TCP/IP.
Using the “Repair” button on the LAN Connection Status screen hasn’t helped, either.
I am at the end of my rope here. Does anyone have a good starting point for me? I’m typing this from the desktop, which has not had any problems at all.
I’d try a System Restore, to a restore point before Friday afternoon. That saved me a lot of hassle once when I installed some Cisco VPN software and it hosed my network stuff.
Before you do the full system restore, I’d suggest assigning your wired NIC a static IP address in the scope you’re normally assigned from the router - that way you could conceivably get into the router and have a look around.
aaand I just reread the OP to realize that you have an active host on the router already, so conceivably you’d be able to check out the router from that. Never mind, then. :smack:
Before doing a system restore, stop! You need to find out if the problem is with the router or the laptop. Does the desktop get an IP address? Can you manage the router from the desktop? Have you tried restarting the router? Are the encryption settings correct? What does it say in the Event Logs?
The desktop obviously gets an IP address, since the OP is posting from it.
I fail to see what the big deal is about trying a system restore. All it does it revert some registry settings and such. And if you don’t like the results you can go back to how it was before.
Not yet. I’ve been assuming that the laptop is the problem, since it fails both wireless and wired, and the desktop succeeds just fiine.
What settings are those? I don’t have a WEP key on the router, if that’s what you mean. I’m not all that paranoid about people using my wi-fi.
Can you be more specific? There are plenty of entries in Event Viewer, but none of them specifically mention my LAN connection. The only errors I see are DCOM related - do you think that could have a bearing here? All other messages are informational.
There’s one “Warning”, from Dhcp, which says “Your computer has automatically configured the IP address for the network card with network address 00C09F5FBA02. The IP address being used is 169.254.81.61.” Does that tell us anything?
It sounds like you have some sort of cable or DSL line connected to a modem. Modem connected to router, 1 desktop connected to router via cat5 cable to the router, and one laptop connected to router via wireless connection. From you description, it sounds like your laptop is finding and attempting to your wireless network, but is unable to get an IP address assigned, and this situation occurs both when attempting to connect via wired and wireless connection.
I would try this: turn off both computers, unplug the router, unplug the modem, and wait 30 seconds. Then plug in the modem and make sure all relevant lights come on. Then plug in the router, again verifying that all the correct lights are coming on. Then turn on the desktop, and verify the internet connection. Then turn on the laptop and see if it can connect. If there was any kind of weird glitch with the modem or router, this should clear it out. If it doesn’t then I would try some of the more complicated stuff.
Oh, this happened a few months ago to me. I added two computers to my network, and later on my x-box couldn’t get an IP address. Turns out in the router setting my IP range was something like 128.0.0.1 - 128.0.0.5. My router had run out of IP address it could assign on my network. I just extended the range. If you added something to the network recently, or it is unsecured and someone else is connecting, you could be running out of IP addresses.
Not really - it’s just Windows’ way of saying “I can’t see any DHCP servers, so I’ll just make a wild guess at an IP address”. I’ll go back to my first suggestion: Try giving your laptop a manually configured IP addy. If that gives you connectivity, it’s the router’s DHCP process. If not, it’s the laptop.
Fantastic - I made up an IP address, entered it manually into the Advanced TCP properies box, and it works now! So that means the router was at fault all along? I guess the next step is to try and reboot it?
Home-grade routers and Wi-Fi devices just aren’t up to the task of running 24/7/365, and they need a periodic reboot to clear the cobwebs.
FWIW, my network equipment at home gets rebooted automatically every day at 3:00 AM thanks to a digital lamp timer - just set the timer to go on at 3:01 AM and turn off at 3:00 AM, resulting in a one minute shutdown. Haven’t had any mysterious problems with the LAN and broadband connections since I set that up.
Not necessarily. I phrased that very carefully. The desktop has got an IP address at some time in the past and the DHCP lease may not have expired, so the PC wil appily continueto use that IP address even if the router is not working properly.