How to disconnect from wireless signal?

December 20, 2005 11:00 AM

My LAN won't unconnect from a wireless IP address!

I just got a cable modem. Everything is working properly, but when I plug my Sony laptop in with the ethernet cable, the LAN connection won't register the modem. Instead, it displays a wireless IP address. Any ideas on how to fix this? I'm running Windows XP Professional.

posted by footnote to computers & internet (10 comments total)

you could try disabling your wireless network card.
posted by delmoi at 11:03 AM on December 20, 2005

Tried that, didn't work. Is there any way to disable wireless functionality more definitively than clicking "disable," short of removing the card?
posted by footnote at 11:12 AM on December 20, 2005

Also (and I have no idea if this makes sense), I'm not sure if the problem is actually the wireless but rather that the LAN thinks it's getting a wireless signal.
posted by footnote at 11:13 AM on December 20, 2005

reboot, enter the bios, and there may be an option to REALLY disable the wireless card- either by disabling the minipci slot it's in, or by killing the power to the radio. Enter windows normally, and see what happens.
posted by wzcx at 11:20 AM on December 20, 2005

What makes you think it's getting a WAN IP address? Some IP addresses (192.168.x.x and 10.2.x.x, for example) are used all over in private LANs. Could be you're getting a similar IP from your Wireless LAN and your Cable modem provider.

It would help if you went to Start -> Run -> "cmd", and typed "ipconfig /all" in the command window. Paste the results here.
posted by ori at 11:25 AM on December 20, 2005

Ori - my ISP tech told me that the IP address was for a wireless connection, and that the address I should be getting from them was different. I don't have my laptop here to perform the operation you've suggested, but I'll do it tomorrow if you can check back!
posted by footnote at 11:31 AM on December 20, 2005

Sure, OK.
posted by ori at 1:30 PM on December 20, 2005

I presume you're plugging the laptop right into the cable modem? And not into a router that's plugged into the cable modem?
posted by antifuse at 2:03 AM on December 21, 2005

Ugh, I forgot to follow your suggestion last night, Ori. Sorry! If you have any patience left for me at all, you can check back here tomorrow.

I'm going to try plan B tonight, which is to use a wireless antenna connected to my USB port and hook up my own new wireless router to the cable modem. In the past I've been able to successfully connect by using a the antenna and a neighbor's open wireless signal, so maybe this will be the solution.

Antifuse - Yes, I'm plugged directly into the modem.

The genesis of the problem may be the configuration I had to perform to connect to my law school's wireless. After a few days of paying no attention whatsoever in class, I decided that I needed to get offline, and I changed the configuration in some way to do that. Now I have no idea what it was that I did...
posted by footnote at 7:42 AM on December 21, 2005

Happy ending! My workplace IT person fixed it (I had been shy about asking him because it wasn't really work related, but he offered to help in the end.) As I suspected, the problem was that I had "hard coded" an IP address when I configured my laptop to work on my school's network, and we just needed to reinstall the ethernet card drivers.
posted by footnote at 1:59 PM on December 22, 2005