My boyfriend and I have been trying to connect to the Wifi network at his parent’s house but there is something odd about their router (I think) - the network pops up on both our laptops but we can’t properly connect to it even with the correct password. We tried connecting directly with a LAN cable but our laptops didn’t even register that they were connected to anything. His parents’ home PC was connected to the Wifi network with no problems.
Later we discovered that the PC had a wireless USB adapter plugged into it - once we took it out and plugged it into our own laptops - presto, the internet worked fine.
So what IS this USB adapter thing and why do we need it to connect to the Wifi network at his parents’ house? Why can’t our computers connect on their own, like they do with other Wifi networks? Does the adapter work as a kind of booster or amplifier? Would getting a new router solve the problem?
The adapter is just an external WiFi card. It’s intended that you plug it into a computer that doesn’t already have WiFi built-in, or an internal WiFi card installed. You definitely shouldn’t need the USB adapter to connect to the WiFi.
But why is it that we can connect to the network with it plugged in, but we can’t without it, if all it is is just an external Wifi card? I know there’s nothing wrong with my laptop’s Wifi capabilities - just the other day we were in a hotel and my laptop worked fine with their Wifi.
How can I figure out if our computers (all three of them!) will only work with 802.11g?
I’m probably asking a really stupid question here . . . but you’d think that a wireless network set up for home use would be set up to be compatible with most PCs or laptops.
802.11n has only been available for the last year or so, so if the router is fairly new, and is set to N mode exclusively, then older laptops/computers will not work with it.
There should be a setting on the router to allow compatibility with older (B and G mode) wireless devices.
Is the router somewhere obscure that maybe your built in antennae can’t get to it but the external adapter can has a farther reach?
Otherwise, try changing the channel on the router. Last year I thought my router was toast. My computers could see it, but couldn’t log on to it, or they could log on but they would drop the connection after a few seconds (and everything had been working fine for years). Changed the channel and all was fine.
But the wireless USB adapter doesn’t have a setting for N networks either, as far as I can tell. It has stuff for 802.11a/b/g networks. Haven’t found an N setting.
My laptop only seems to have a 802.11b network setting. Maybe the Wifi network is 802.11g then?
WAG: someone enabled MAC address filtering on the router. The MAC addresses is unique to each network adapter, so if filtering is enabled, only the registered wireless adapters can connect to it. The MAC address of the USB wireless adapter is obviously registered, so this adapter would work - even when connected to a different computer.
This one gets my vote. My memory of how things work is very hazy, but I don’t think that a b client should even be able to see a g network. If the MAC filtering doesn’t work out than I’d check if the router is configured to be g only.
That could make sense, especially since they said they couldn’t get online even using a wired connection.
HNC, you need to log on to the router and take a look at the settings.
But my boyfriend’s computer is G so it should work with his.
Also none of this explains why we can’t even connect to the router with a LAN cable.
The MAC address thing sounds more promising. I’ll have to look into that . . . I’m not sure how you go about disabling MAC address filtering on a router though.
This gets my vote in the interim. Otherwise, as Joey P suggested, your internal WiFi card isn’t powerful enough to pick up the signal (due to interference), but the adapter is.
We might be able to give you more advice if you post some specs on your computer.
The LAN cable not working means it’s probably not a channel thing. I’ll bet there’s some filtering in there. Actually, there’s also a chance that DHCP is turned off and you need to manually enter in your own info.
If you don’t want to go into the router, that’s the next thing I would try.
Find your network settings (varies based on OS), go to the properties for TCP/IP and change it from “Obtain IP address automatically” to the manual setting and use
IP address: 192.168.1.108
Subnet Mask :255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.1.1
Preferred DNS Server 192.168.1.1
Alternate DNS (leave blank)
For the IP address, you may have to change the last three digits, but 108 is probably safe.
The Default Gateway is the IP address of the router, again 192.168.1.1 is probably safe, especially if it’s just an off the shelf Linksys/Netgear/Dlink Router
Preferred DNS should be the same as the gateway.
ETA Just thought of one other thing. The router might be set to only allow X connections at a time which could be maxed out and not allowing other computers on. When you unplugged the USB adapter it dropped a connection. A test would be to unplug the USB adapter and then try logging on with your computer.
the router is capable of speaking b, g, and possibly n just fine. My vote without further research would be mac filtering or dhcp issues. If it was a prblem involving any wireless protocols, passwords, or incompatible encryption schemes even a router set to “n only” then plugging it in would work fine.
I figured it out!! MAC address filtering was enabled in the router settings, as I discovered with some poking around, so I added our laptop MAC address to the settings and it worked like magic!! Hooray! You guys are awesome.
What really annoys me is that we called the helpline last time we were trying to figure out what was wrong and the idiots did nothing but make me switch things on and off and finally told me that it was my laptop that was fucked up. :rolleyes:
Thanks so much for all the help. The SDMB never disappoints.
