Wireless Connects but no internet ?

thor

albertross wrote:

Thor,

Google for any piece of equipment, and you will find problems, and few happy customers - people generally post problems, not praise.

Until the last few days, this forum rarely had a Netgear problem, but plenty of Belkin, Linksys etc..

Wireless is complicated. It can be affected by interference from the neighbours equipment (change channels), video senders, dect phones, they all use the same 2.4Ghz frequency. You will probably have a wireless black spot or two in the house. The same issues affect all brands.

Sometimes swapping the wireless card/usb dongle fixes issues.

AOL and VPN users need to reduce their MTU from the router default.

This can tweak it on the PC .. try 1400 or 1460 for AOL.

http://www.speedguide.net/files/TCPOptimizer.exe
http://www.speedguide.net/tcpoptimizer.php


If you haven't done this already, try changing channels, at least 5 channels away from the nearest neighbours (use netstumbler to find out what they are using).

http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/netstumblerinstaller_0_4_0.exe

Upgrade the router to the latest firmware.

http://kbserver.netgear.com/support_details.asp?dnldID=191

Is that model a 802.11b router? If so, tell your laptop to use this mode, not the faster g

Some routers prefer WPA to WEP, I'm not sure if this affects Netgears, but something to try if you are using WEP (which is less secure than WPA anyway).

If you haven't setup encryption, disabled SSID broadcasting, changed the default password, disabled upnp, and remote admin, then I'd do that, people could be connecting to your router, and playing..

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=1460703&postcount=2

There may be a bad batch of routers out there, but I'd check these things before you waste money on new equipment. Never had a problem myself.

Some great suggestions there Albatross. The reason I badmouthed Netgear is that when I googled there were so many complaints about them and my particular model (MR314) in particular. If you check for yourself you will see that the main gripe is about inconsistent connections just like I experienced with mine. I managed to borrow a friend's Belkin High Speed G router and have experienced no problems at all. This has at least convinced me that there is nothing wrong with my Dell laptop. I understand your point about wasting money on an unneccessary router but I must admit that I have been llooking for an excuse to upgrade to one with WPA encryption as well as the ability to stop SSID broadcasting. It is also about half the size so I think I know what I'll be using my amazon vouchers for now.

albertross_2

Thor,

Hope you didn't think I was being critical, I stretched the post a bit to include some info (hopefully) of use to others with problems, it wasn't all directed at you..

I haven't used that particular model (it's quite old), so can't comment from direct experience, the Netgear's I have used seem very reliable.

The forum gets a lot of posts saying "my xxx wireless isn't working, I'm gonna bin it and get a yyy". All I was trying to say was that yyy might not work either, there are avenues to explore before you bin the xxx..

CrazyMoney

Hi all, I have now got this working the NETGEAR network has disappeared and I now have my unique SSID. Connected the router to the computer and did an apply to the instruction albertross previously posted. Funny as I didnt think it had worked till I just viewed my wireless networks and saw my new SSID and it as secured !

Thanks to all, especially albertross

albertross_2

Glad it's working at last.. Can you get to 192.168.0.1 at will now, and have you got a 192 address.