PC without WiFi

debitcardmayhem

Ok back to my last question, about routers, and when you say there are two internet connections can you explain what you mean. Also can the PC get on to google etc?

Terrysdelight

OK.  On my friends desk there is a BT Router.  I can't plug into this because all sockets are full.   He also has a what I believe is a wifi booster connected up to the router.   Its definitely connected because I just unplugged it from the back of the router.    This wifi booster is about 36 inches away from the router.  I would have thought this is of no benefit at all?

debitcardmayhem

Plug the pc wher that was and see if

then try and add the printer

Terrysdelight

debitcardmayhem said:

Ok back to my last question, about routers, and when you say there are two internet connections can you explain what you mean. Also can the PC get on to google etc?

OK.  I believe there are two internet connections.    There is one BT router on his desk.    I can't see another router anywhere but he has a large about 24 inch x 24 inch BT box on the wall.   The PC which I am using is directly plugged into this box on the wall.    It is the PC which I am using that has the different IP address to everyone else.  ie, the IP address starts as IP 217.42.???

My original question was only to find out what piece of equipment I needed to make this (non-wifi) PC able to connect via wi-fi to the printer.    I'd rather just know how to do this.  I am taking up too much of other peoples time, plus I am losing the will to live lol.

debitcardmayhem

Sounds like he has a business line for his pc too. So back to what he needs is a usb wireless adaptor  ebay/amazon etc

Terrysdelight

debitcardmayhem said:

Plug the pc wher that was and see if

then try and add the printer

Yes, that worked.  I can print directly to the printer but now none of the other equipment, laptops are connected to the internet.   I unplugged the BT Wifi extender/booster  from the router so I could connect the PC directly into the router.

I have just changed the set-up back to how it was and now, laptops are connected to the internet again.
The PC shows that the printer is off-line.   At least one good thing has come out of this, the printer is actually installed on the PC it just can't connect to it!

debitcardmayhem

OK next question then is before buying a usb wifi do you know what else is connected to the router?

Ignore that unless the pc has two ethernet cards.

Terrysdelight

debitcardmayhem said:

Sounds like he has a business line for his pc too. So back to what he needs is a usb wireless adaptor  ebay/amazon etc

Yep.  My original question lol.   Are you able to recommend a decent one?

Terrysdelight

I've just looked on the side of the bt box on the wall.   It has his desktop router connected to a LAN.  The pc I am using is connected to a different socket and is marked as WAN.    From memory thats a local and a wide area network.

Mickey666

Terrysdelight said:

debitcardmayhem said:

No no the printer needs its own IP address just put that in to the add printer dialogue

I did add the printer IP address in the section for adding a printer manually "TCP/IP" etc.
What I have discovered is my PC is NOT connected to the router which everyone else is on.  I am connected directly to something else.
EG - everyone including the printer is on 192.???.1, but my PC is connected to IP 217.42.???.   So, totally different!

How, exactly, did you discover that?  What you're saying is not making much sense (not a criticism, I can feel your frustration!).

Do you understand how a router works?  It basically creates a network local to you (or your friend) and if it's a BT router this network address will usually be 192.168.1.x  The router itself will usually be 192.168.1.1 and everything else on this local network will have its own number for 'x'.  In this way, everything on this local network has a unique address and can 'talk' to everything else and it doesn't matter whether the device is connected with an ethernet cable or via a wifi connection - it will still have a 192.168.1.x address and will still be able to talk to anything else on the network.

The router ALSO provides a sort of 'bridge' to the internet and its internet address will be different to the 192.168.1.x address of your local network.  217.42.?.? sounds very much like an internet address.  When any device on the local 192.168.1.x network wants to talk to the internet, it actually talks to 192.168.1.1 which is the router's address and the router does all the clever stuff to handle the internet communications.  Basically, the 'internet' will 'see' only ONE address (probably the 217.42.?.? address) for ALL the devices on your local network and the router and sends them to/from the appropriate device - this is why it's called a ROUTER - it 'routes' the messages appropriately.  This process is called Network Address Translation (NAT) and provides an essential level of firewall protection between all the devices on your local network and the big bad 'wild west' world of the global internet.  Basically it stops me, or anyone else, from directly controlling anything on your local network, which is obviously a good thing!   It's actually rather more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it.

So, you have a router that's connected to the internet and that will likely have an address of something like 217.42.?.?, but it doesn't really matter what it is and you don't need to know anything about it - the router will deal with all that stuff on 'the internet' side of things.  Your concern is the LOCAL network and all the devices connected to it.  Unless the router has been  configured differently, the local network addresses are set up automatically via a process call DHCP.  Basically, when a new device connects to the local network (either by wifi or by direct cable) it needs an address and, via the DHCP process, the router will GIVE the device one of the available 192.168.1.x addresses and keep it's own record of which addresses have been given out.  Again, this is all automatic and should require no configuration at all.  This is called DYNAMIC addressing.  It's also possible to manually assign a STATIC address, but it needs to be done carefully so as to avoid an address clash.  If two devices have the SAME local network address then things will start misbehaving.

Personally, I would go back to basics and try setting up the entire network automatically.  Switch off everything, then switch on the router and let that connect to the internet (takes a couple of minutes and progress is visible via the router LED).  Then, switch on a PC and get that connected to the network correctly (thus giving it internet access).  Then switch on the printer and get that connected to the local network.  Then get the PC working with the printer.  Only then would I switch on something else on the network etc, thus doing everything one step at a time and, if necessary, dealing with each problem one at a time instead of possibly having to deal with multiple problems and getting confused in the process..

A last resort could be to completely reset the router back to its factory configuration and  rebuild the system as if for the very first time.  A bit drastic perhaps but in situations where there has been a lot of 'fiddling' and no one really knows what has been done by whom, it can sometimes be simpler to start from scratch - especially if there are not too many devices on the local network in the first place.