Problem connecting to wifi

wadewade

Every day when I switch my laptop on and try to go on the internet I am told there is no connection.
I run Windows Network Diagnostics as invited and it carries out a number of checks.
Finally it comes up with "WiFi doesn't have a valid IP configuration" and "Fixed".
I can then go on the internet quite happily all day but the problem recurs next morning.
How do I go about giving my WiFi a "valid IP configuration" please?
Hopefully in idiots guide language!!

neilmcl

Try switching off your router and anything that connects to it. Restart the router, then all devices in turn once it has come back up.

wadewade

I tried this with a surprising result.
I did as you suggested and my computer connected perfectly twice. After the second time I did some printing and later turned my computer off. The printer would have gone into stand by.
When I tried to start it the third time I received the same message as before, I used Windows Network Diagnostics and it resolved the problem but came up with a different explanation "Reset WiFi adapter".
My printer is an HP Envy 5540 Wifi. Could this be the cause of my problem?

wongataa

It sounds like there is some king of IP address issue. It is as if the router is not automatically allocating free addresses to the devices trying to connect and resetting your wi-fi adaptor is forcing a IP address refresh. Is your router set to auto allocate IP addresses or is it using fixed IPs?

fleshandbone

Do you have a talktalk router by any chance?

wadewade

No, I am on Virgin Media and have the one they supplied.

Is there an easy way I can check for this, please. I am decidely low tech! >>
Is your router set to auto allocate IP addresses or is it using fixed IPs?

D_M_E

As said, you need to tell the router to give each device a fixed network address and this will sort your problem.

To do this you need to log in to your router's admin page and go to Advanced Settings where this can be done - I think you will need either each device's name and/or MAC address to do this.

Also, it's best done via an ethernet cable plugged into the router and the machine used to do the setup.

If you are not sure of how to do it or are not confident about doing it, then one solution would be to turn off the printer and leave it off and only turn it on a few minutes before something needs printing.

wadewade

Thank you, my son is coming next weekend and I'll ask him to do as you suggest. In the meantime switching off the printer is a good idea!

DavidP24

It has been suggested that when your son comes, tell him to reduce the range of DHCP pool to 10 IP addresses and then set your PC to an address outside that range, but wait.

I know it sounds complicated but it really is quite simple. I will try to dumb it down a bit.

So think of these IP Addresses as phone numbers, there are two sorts, ones you can use on the internet and ones you can use at home. So this is like an office switchboard, you get your company phone number from the phone co and internally you use extensions, the might be numbered from say 200 to 300 if you are a small co or 2000 to 3000 if you are a big company.

With IP addresses, it is usually the ISP not the phone company that gives you your IP to use on the internet, some organisations own their own IP addresses but I will not go into that now. What your ISP does is LEASE you an IP address, that lease may last an hour, day, week, month or year; depends on your ISP. They keep logs of who leased what number for what period of time so anything you do online can be traced.

Now internally things are similar too, instead of telephone extension numbers we have a reserved set of IP addresses, they cannot be used on the internet, your router converts all traffic from internal to external just like a switchboard connects someone on extension 301 to an outside line.

So your Virgin router is doing the same as the ISP, it is leasing you an Internal IP address, what might be happening is that your router has a short lease and your laptop maybe goes to sleep and releases it. The router then leases that same IP to the printer because it thinks you are done with it. However, I think it is the other way around, I think it is the printer that is the problem.

Then your PC comes back and there is a conflict, you can't have two devices with the same IP address on a network so Windows is asking for a new one when you get that error.

The leasing of IP's is called DHCP, you can set a range of say 10 IP's to be given out to any device joining your network and have the rest used as permanent.

So there are several solutions

1. Increase the lease time on the Virgin router to say a week or longer if it has that option.

This will mean the router will not give out your IP for a week after you last use it, this is part of my suggested solution.

2. Configure the Lan card on your laptop to not be shut off when sleeping, and set it to keep it alive.

This should be done ONLY if the problem occurs on other networks, e.g. at someone else's house or in an internet cafe.

3. Do as previous person said which is to allocate you a permanent IP address

This is probably quickest solution in your home but it may give you a problem using wifi on other networks or in a cafe.

The mistake is that you are applying a solution without first determining the actual problem, it could be a poorly configured router, your printer's config, your laptop config, you may have a faulty network adapter, (if so it is an easy thing to replace and can be upgraded to a faster one) so you need to make changes and monitor.

There are 3 ranges of IP addresses that can be used, the most common is

192.168.x.x

Do not be confused by the dots, it is just a way to represent a number, computers use binary numbers but humans are slow converting them so this system was devised to make things simpler.

The two x's can be any number from 0 to 254 and this is determine by how the router was setup.

Sky use 192.168.0.x

So the lease pool range might be 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.21 that would be 20 addresses available in the pool for allocation for devices that join your network.

192.168.0.1 is the address of the router itself.

So if your son went into windows and set your IP to be a fixed permanent IP address say 192.168.0.100 it would always be that address, no matter what network you joined and that may cause you a problem.

If you took your laptop to the library and they used DHCP in a different range, say 192.168.1.0 then they may not route your 192.168.0.100 address, they may also have their DHCP lease as a part of their security so without it you could not use their internet.

Ideally DHCP is best, now you could set the printer to be 192.168.0.101 but you may have the same issue on another device, perhaps a phone. The fact is you have to figure this out to establish the best solution.

I suspect that it is not your laptop at all, I suspect that it is the printer that is not keeping its IP alive, so it is the printer that THINKS it has the IP address lease but the router let it go. Windows just sees the conflict when you turn on the printer and offers to fix it.

So the solution, to start with, is to change the IP lease to as long as possible on the router; this will at least stop it being given out so quickly when released.

Next make the DHCP IP address pool on the router smaller to say 20 but leave your laptop as DHCP, then change your PRINTER to a fixed IP of say 192.168.x.101.

Now use the network for a week and see if the problem goes away, if so all is good you established that it was the printer that was the problem.

If not you can investigate the Laptop, have your son look at the network settings of the net adapter on your laptop, there will be some manufacturer specific settings, some will allow you to keep it alive even when asleep, there is also a setting in Windows Power that allows you say Windows can't turn this device off when in sleep mode.

OK in next week's lesson we are going to cover subnetting IP addresses using different masks, luckily it is unlikely you will ever need this so no need to attend.

Good Luck!

wadewade

Thank you so much, David, I really am very grateful for this. I'm sure my son will be able to sort things out for me now. I'm sorry if I presented myself as an idiot - it's just that at 74 years I am happy (and even slightly capable of) using my laptop when it is running as it should but rapidly become somewhat bemused when it starts playing up!!

DavidP24

Happy to help, do not think that being 74 is a barrier, it is just a matter of starting the jigsaw with bits that make sense to you. Corners, edges, then it all starts to fit together.

The big secret is that computers are stupid, as humans we have intuition, they just have some geeky error the programmer told them to say when things do not work.

Once you analyse things the answer becomes clear and in your post above you actually had the right instinct that it was the printer.

My lare father got into PC's when they were far more complicated, he hated that he did not understand them or know where to start because he was an engineer. Yet within a year he was writing code for a programme to work on his shares.

These days they just want to hide the technology from you, that is OK for some, it is after all just a tool, we do not have to know how our engine works to drive a car, just fill it up with fuel, keep the other fluids within levels and watch the tyres.

The great thing is that you are having a go and using the technology!