Ethernet Connection?

JS477

I've got an old Acer Aspire V5-531 laptop and want to use access the internet via a ethernet connection but it always uses a wireless connection to access our router. I tried turning off the wireless connection but I cannot access the internet when I connect an ethernet lead between the laptop and the router.

Is it possible to change the settings so that the laptop uses an ethernet connection instead of a wireless one?

Thanks

John_Gray

The usual way of doing this is for your router to use DHCP to hand out all the required IP address information.

If you can use the laptop wirelessly, the router is probably already doing this.

You need to search out the operating system settings for the ethernet adapter, the route to which depends somewhat on which version of Windows you are using.

Could you tell us this, so that further and better instructions can be provided?

ThemeOne

It could be a driver issue with the ethernet adaptor on your laptop. Take a look at Device Manager and see if anything has a question mark beside it.

Scarum

On the laptop go to manage wireless settings, select and remove your wireless connection. Connect network cable to router et voila.

debitcardmayhem

Goto Network and sharing settings and disable the wifi adaptor and enable the ethernet

prowla

ThemeOne wrote: »

It could be a driver issue with the ethernet adaptor on your laptop. Take a look at Device Manager and see if anything has a question mark beside it.

My thought too - the network interfaces often need a driver loaded.

Incidentally, my work laptop (Dell) has a BIOS option to disable the Wi-Fi if the Ethernet plug is attached - that makes it quite easy to swap between the better physical network to wireless, just by docking/undocking the machine.

JS477

ThemeOne wrote: »

It could be a driver issue with the ethernet adaptor on your laptop. Take a look at Device Manager and see if anything has a question mark beside it.

That appears to be the issue.

ThemeOne

From Device Manager you can right click on Ethernet Controller and select Update Driver - Windows will try and find it, it will often fail - but it's worth a try.

Otherwise you'll need to discover the manufacturer and model of the ethernet controller, then get the driver from the manufacturer website. Hopefully there will be a driver for W7, which it looks like you're using, but sometimes the XP ones will work.

John_Gray

I don't know how good Acer are in supplying updated drivers from their website, but it might be worth a look for drivers for all those devices, if possible, for whichever operating system you're using on the laptop.

Here you are: for Acer drivers
Choose Aspire V5-531 from the drop-down in the "Product Model" field
and choose your Operating System.
Note there are also (probably fairly similar!) drivers for the V5-531G, V5-531P and V5-531PG.

You certainly want LAN and Chipset, at least...

JS477

ThemeOne wrote: »

From Device Manager you can right click on Ethernet Controller and select Update Driver - Windows will try and find it, it will often fail - but it's worth a try.

Otherwise you'll need to discover the manufacturer and model of the ethernet controller, then get the driver from the manufacturer website. Hopefully there will be a driver for W7, which it looks like you're using, but sometimes the XP ones will work.

Windows did fail to update the drivers and I'm having to install them manually after downloading them from the Acer website.

ThemeOne

JS477 wrote: »

Windows did fail to update the drivers and I'm having to install them manually after downloading them from the Acer website.

No surprises there, to be honest, but it sounds like you've got it pretty much sorted which is good.

I've found Windows is increasingly poor at installing drivers automatically. I've often installed Windows only to end up with the fairly spectacular "double-fail" of no display driver (and hence a "lovely" 800x600 display), and no internet.