Laptop connects to wireless network but not to internet

July 4, 2009 3:50 AM

Laptop (running Vista) connects to home wireless network full strength but not to internet. The other laptop (OS X) connects to internet wirelessly no problem. The Vista laptop can connect the internet via ethernet cable. This seems to be a common problem but i cannot find an appropriate solution

The Vista laptop is not new, but it is new to my house; it connected to a wireless network previously.

Things I have discovered while looking through replies to similar questions: The Vista laptop has been assigned the correct IP number (which has a different last digit to the OS X one). DHCP is enabled. Node type is Hybrid. The wireless adapter driver is working. When I try to ipconfig /release it tells me: The requested operation requires elevation.

posted by criticalbill to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Welcome to Vista :P

To do anything administrative with the Vista command line, you need to right-click on cmd in the menu and select Run As Administrator. After the usual User Annoyed Constantly prompt, you should have an admin console and your ipconfig command should work as intended.

That aside: most likely cause for this is that your wireless router is configured with WPA2 security and your Vista wireless driver doesn't support WPA2. The IP address you're seeing is probably the one handed out via DHCP to the wired connection. Try reconfiguring the router to use WPA instead.
posted by flabdablet at 4:30 AM on July 4

Have you checked your anti-virus settings? I had a similar issue with Vista and it was AVG anti-virus deciding to be helpful and block all traffic

Also, Vista has a pretty good inbuilt tool for diagnosing these issues. If you doubleclick on the icon in your system tray, you should see a little control panel with a pic of your computer -> router - > internet. If you click on the link between router and internet then vista will try to fix the connection
posted by kaydo at 5:11 AM on July 4

My Vista laptop's wireless sometimes picks up interference from other laptops' wireless cards, and a perfectly usable wireless network suddenly becomes unreachable until the other laptop leaves the picture. Anecdotally, this seems to happen more often when the other computer is a mac. And for whatever reason, I always seem to be the interfered upon rather than the interferer.

(Long story short, make sure to connecting with all other wireless appliances turned off.)
posted by Nonce at 6:01 AM on July 4

Errr, make sure to try connecting with all other wireless appliances turned off.
posted by Nonce at 6:47 AM on July 4

seconding Nonces suggestion-including wireless printers etc. You might also try connecting in "safe mode" using "with network connections" to find out whether it is the wireless system or other software.
posted by rmhsinc at 11:08 AM on July 4

This happens with my Vista laptop a lot - I'll connect to the network full strength, but with "local access only". If I let it sit long enough, eventually it realizes that There Is An Internet, and connects. Upgrading to SP2 seems to have made this problem less frequent for me, so you might try that if you don't have it already.

I also have better luck connecting to some wireless networks than others, so as a last resort you might try a different router. (Or go somewhere that has free wireless, and see if you have the same problem there.)
posted by pemberkins at 7:57 PM on July 4

The Vista laptop, new to your home, connected to a wireless network previously. So you have inherited the network settings from the previous location. Including Note Type Hybrid. Which leads me to believe that WINS is enabled. Wondering aloud: Is there any reason to enable WINS in your situation? (Just grasping at straws here.)
posted by exphysicist345 at 12:03 PM on July 5

Did you have Norton/Symantec Anti-virus? Did you uninstall it? If you did you need to go onto Symantec's site and get the Norton AV removal tool.
posted by I-baLL at 11:14 PM on July 5