Please note, I’m near illiterate when it comes to networking, I had one of my friends install my network. I have a Dell laptop (Latitude D600). It was working fine the other day. All of sudden, it just stopped working. I have an IP address (at least not 168… or 169…) I’m using a D-Link AirPlus card (DWL-650+). The Dell has its own internal modem, but that rarely works in my apartment. I got the wireless card for free, so I thought that I might as well use it. XP says that I’m connected, usually at 11.0 Mbps (I didn’t even know I had that kind of speed), and that the signal strength is excellent. However, I’m barely sending any packets, and I’m receiving exactly 0. I tried calling my friend, but he is out in the boonies of Utah on some consulting gig. I know I saw some thread here not too long ago, about boosting attennae strenghth. Is it possible to boost the strength to the card or internal modem via the card or modem? (Does that make sense?) I don’t want to fool around with the router because it’s not mine and I don’t want it breaking.
Have you just tried pulling the card out of the laptop, leaving it out for a minute or so, and plugging it back in? That works sometimes. If you dare, you can pull the power out of the back of the router and plug it back in. You can do the same with the cable and DSL modem. It shouldn’t hurt anything.
It doesn’t sound to me like you need to worry about boosting antenna strength.
Since you’re not receiving any packets, I think there is some kind of configuration issue between your PC and the router. And if that’s the case, there’s no way to fix the problem without knowing the configuration of the router.
Is the ‘internal modem’ actually an internal wireless modem? If so, make sure it’s disabled (Start–Settings–Network Connections, right click on it to disable it). It may be conflicting with the (working) configuration on the PC card.
I’d say fooling with the router is about your only option (and also the procedure most likely to work). For some reason, most consumer-grade routers (especially wireless) will occasionally flake out, and require unplugging/plugging back in. This procedure would interrupt anyone using said router at the time, but shouldn’t have any other effect on users.
Otherwise, re-seating your wifi card and rebooting is about all you can do.