Won't connect to wireless network - ACER laptop

kazimojo69

Hi

I have just bought my children a laptop from Tesco (Acer). It seems very good and has windows vista on it.

We have broadband already and a router and I was hooing they could use their laptop on a wireless network.

The instruction booklet isnt that great and I am just trying to set up as the pics show me.

It is showing "wireless connected" to our router at 54mbps! But the LAN is showing as "disconnected ". I have gone through the various properties buttons etc - and not sure what to do.

How to I get the LAN to show connected - as in the pic in the booklet and how can I connect to the internet???

Do I need to run our broadband disc on the new laptop?

Lorian

LAN is supposed to say disconnected - thats when it's connected via a WIRE. Its a bit confusing as it's next to the wireless display in Acer's E-mangement software.

If you double-click on the little "transmitter" icon in the tray down on the bottom right what does it say on that screen?

Have you entered your WEP/WPA key in the new PC? Do you know what it is (dont tell us if you do).

espresso

No need to run any ISP disk on your nice new clean computer and mess it up! Much more important is to encrypt the wireless with WPA-PSK to make it secure.

Little_John

You don't need to have LAN connected if you are useing a wireless connection you only need one or the other.

hopfully the router is set to automatically issue the IP address etc so all you need to do is get the wireless connection running and conected and it should work just open your web browser. have you tried that?

If it doesnt work click the window orb thing in the bottom left and enter cmd in the search box and hit enter/return, in the box that opens type ipconfig/all and hit enter.
have a look at the numbers
you are only interested in the wireless conenction
Dhcp Enabled yes or no
ip address should follow a partern
IP address, will be slightly different to the Dhcp server and gateway and proberbly the DNS server by just 1 number the final one.
example
IP address 192.168.0.2
Dhcp 192.168.0.1
subnet mask 255.255.255.0
default gateway 192.168.0.1
DNS servers 192.168.0.1

let us know what you get and we can see where things are falling over

kazimojo69

thank you - just about to have dinner - so will check all this in a bit. But not sure what wpa/wep (??) key is or where to find it????

Transmitter thing at bottom is showing internet connected - - auto netgear - signal strength excellent - 54mbps

espresso

kazimojo69 wrote: »

thank you - just about to have dinner - so will check all this in a bit. But not sure what wpa/wep (??) key is or where to find it????

Transmitter thing at bottom is showing internet connected - - auto netgear - signal strength excellent - 54mbps

Read the user manual for your router and set up WPA encryption ASAP!

kazimojo69

Little_John wrote: »

You don't need to have LAN connected if you are useing a wireless connection you only need one or the other.

hopfully the router is set to automatically issue the IP address etc so all you need to do is get the wireless connection running and conected and it should work just open your web browser. have you tried that? Yes - just comes up as cant find

If it doesnt work click the window orb thing in the bottom left and enter cmd in the search box and hit enter/return, in the box that opens type ipconfig/all and hit enter.
have a look at the numbers
you are only interested in the wireless conenction
Dhcp Enabled yes or no YES
ip address should follow a partern
IP address, will be slightly different to the Dhcp server and gateway and proberbly the DNS server by just 1 number the final one.
example
IP address 192.168.0.2 192.168.0.9 (PREFERRED)
Dhcp 192.168.0.1 SAME
subnet mask 255.255.255.0 same
default gateway 192.168.0.1 same
DNS servers 192.168.0.1 same

let us know what you get and we can see where things are falling over

Does this mean anything to you??? - When I try and type in an web address - it comes up with explorer cannot display webpage.

When I diagnose problem - it comes up with windows cannot find host name xyz

Little_John

Ok, so the router is issueing ip addresses and your connected correctly to the router.

Have you been able to use the internet on this router before? it sounds like the connecion is either down or not configured.

Now this could be either your existing router is configured for USB connectivity with your existing pc and you use a dial up thing to connect.
or
somthing has gone wrong, have you done a reset or somthing?

in your browser address bar enter 192.168.0.1 and hit enter

depending on the router the results will vary so let us know which router you are useing.

kazimojo69

it comes up with the server 192.168.0.1 at netgear dg834g requires a user name and password.

thing is cant remember/or know what they are!

espresso

When prompted, enter admin for the user name and password for the password, both in lower case letters, unless you changed them which you really should have done!

debsy42

You don't have Norton or anything that might be blocking access do you? When I first got my laptop with Norton preloaded I had to permit access to Internet Explorer etc before I could get online.