Former wireless PC doesn't recognise Ethernet connection

Ed_Jogg

Can someone please help with this fairly simple problem?

Our Vista PC used to connect to the Internet via a wireless USB dongle and an ADSL wireless router. Now we've changed routers and the PC is connected directly to the router by an Ethernet cable; the wireless dongle has been removed.

Unfortunately the PC still thinks it should be looking for the wireless connection, even though the Ethernet is working OK. Consequently, the network activity icon in the tooltray shows a big red cross and says "You are not currently connected to any networks", and other monitoring tools show much the same result.

How can I stop the PC from wanting to connect via the (no longer present) wireless dongle and hence recognise the Ethernet connection?

sickofusernames

Did you install the Wifi connection utility supplied with the dongle or just use windows wifi monitor? If the former then i'd suggest uninstalling the software supplied with the dongle first to see if that works.

Ed_Jogg

That's good thinking, thank you....

Can't remember, hang on...
<pause while searches computer>

OK, no sign of 'DLink' in add/remove programs, nor any file including 'dlink' (or 'd-link') in the filename, so I have to presume that it was a plug-and-play using the built-in Windows wifi monitor.

macman

Look in Device Manager and see what shows up under Network Adapters.

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hmm, aren't you just able to right click on the system tray icon, select open network connections, right click on the wireless connections > properties > remove the tick box from both boxes. Then go back to the network connections window. Right click again on the Wireless connection and click disable.

Then right click on the Local Area Connection and hit Repair.

If you get errors after that then it's not the wireless. Plus that gets rid of the pesky red-cross wifi notifications in the system tray.

Ed_Jogg

These seem like good suggestions, thank you, although I can't try them until I get home from work tonight. (And yes, Little Miss..., it may well be as simple as that! We shall see.)

What I am fairly sure of is that only one network connection is shown -- ie it is not showing both a live Ethernet connection and a dormant wifi connection... But I'll confirm this tonight.

Ed_Jogg

macman wrote: »

Look in Device Manager and see what shows up under Network Adapters.

Intel(R) 82562V 10/100 Network Connection

And that's it.

OK, had an idea. Plugged in the dongle again and looked in Device Manager again. Now two devices seen:
* D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G122 Wireless USB Adapter (rev. C) #8
* Intel(R) 82562V 10/100 Network Connection

Right click gives option for unloading the driver for the dongle....
...but unloading it didn't recover the situation

Jamiej_2

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt wrote: »

Hmm, aren't you just able to right click on the system tray icon, select open network connections, right click on the wireless connections > properties > remove the tick box from both boxes. Then go back to the network connections window. Right click again on the Wireless connection and click disable.

Then right click on the Local Area Connection and hit Repair.

If you get errors after that then it's not the wireless. Plus that gets rid of the pesky red-cross wifi notifications in the system tray.

I'd go with this as it's exactly what I did when swapping from wireless to wired.

Ed_Jogg

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt wrote: »

Hmm, aren't you just able to right click on the system tray icon, select open network connections, right click on the wireless connections > properties > remove the tick box from both boxes. Then go back to the network connections window. Right click again on the Wireless connection and click disable.

Then right click on the Local Area Connection and hit Repair.

If you get errors after that then it's not the wireless. Plus that gets rid of the pesky red-cross wifi notifications in the system tray.

This doesn't seem to apply to Vista. Right-click options are:
- Connect to a network
- Turn on activity animation
- Turn off notification of new networks
- Diagnose and repair
- Network and Sharing center

Going to "Network and Sharing center --> Manage network connections" shows "Local Area Connection" enabled, and selecting 'Diagnose' for this just results in Windows saying that there's nothing wrong with it.


Just a thought, as it's the cable modem that's actually connected to the Internet, do I need to do anything inside the router to make Windows recognise the network connection?

Ed_Jogg

My apologies for the delay in closing this thread.
Further apologies for anyone eagerly awaiting an answer -- I don't have one.

The hard disk in the PC decided it was going to start giving read errors, and consequently got to the point where Windows wouldn't boot. The solution was a replacement hard disk and a clean install of Vista -- hence the problem is no longer present, and I have no intention of trying to re-create the scenario!

(But thanks to everyone for their help.)

JasX

Personally I suspect the network card ethernet connection was disabled -most people do to avoid the 'red cross' a network cable is disconnected being reported from their non-wireless card while they're only intending to use wireless....