Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laptop and internet

Laptop connects to wireless network but not to internet

criticalbill — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:50:55 -0800

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.

How can I maximize my laptop's ability to pick up wireless signal?

btkuhn — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:25:00 -0800

How can I maximize my laptop's ability to pick up wireless signal? Hi everyone,

I don't have regular internet access at the moment because I am traveling and staying at a (crappy) hotel for 2-3 months. Dialup is not an option because of the way the hotel's phones are set up - they are digital and I wold get charged for making calls anyways. My hotel doesn't have wireless internet but a nearby apartment complex does. I can just barely connect to their network on a good day, but it cuts in and out because I am on the outer bounds of the network. I have permission to use the wireless network, but I am just barely out of range. What is the best way to strengthen things on my end?

I have already borrowed a friend's Wireless USB network adapter - the one pictured here - which is about as strong as a wireless card you can buy, but it doesn't seem to pick up signal much better. I am reading stuff about making a coffee can directional antenna or pringles can antenna, but these would both involve building something, which I don't really have the tools for at my current location. Also, I don't understand how I would connect the antenna to the computer itself anyways. My laptop has an internal wireless antenna (like most laptops) with no external connector, and the Belkin doesn't have an external connector either.

So, what is the best way to expand my wireless pickup ability? I am willing to purchase additional products if necessary.

Thanks!

What European country will offer the lowest price for the same mini-laptop?

gttommy — Sat, 30 May 2009 04:58:53 -0800

What European country will offer the lowest price for the same mini-laptop? (list of countries inside) This is really a 2 part question...

I would like to buy a cheap, super fast, long-battery-life mini-laptop, solely for going on to the internet at places which provide free wi-fi. I will emphasise the need for fast load up time, and switching between several web browser windows without lag. Eye-candy is not important.

For under 200-400 USD what should I get? (cheaper is good)

As I am travelling around Europe, in what country should I get it?

Countries: England, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Monaco, Vatican City

Considering currency exchange rates, tax regulations, and anything else you can think of.

Thanks in advance.

Local Apache server + public wireless = problem?

oulipian — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:41:26 -0800

I have a new EeePC 1000HE with Windows XP, which I want to use for both web development and casual web browsing. Are there security issues with installing Apache and PHP on a machine that is also used to access public wireless internet? If so, what steps can I take to make my netbook more secure?

Automagic Update Ate My Connection

geekyguy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:41:06 -0800

WindowsXP laptop, performed an XP automatic update on itself and has since had no internet connectivity. Despite connecting and receiving an IP address. It connects to the wireless router.
It connected to the wired network I have access to.
Neither time does it have actual connectivity.

System Restore worked once but I failed to shut off the Automatic Update, (Honestly, I don't think I had selected it), and it updated again at 3AM. System Restore no longer works. Even attempting to use the same System Restore point that initially worked has proven fruitless.

I have loads of homework and don't have time to nuke it. Please help me restore the connection. So glad I have a Wubi Ubuntu on here, the connection is fine over here.

Bluetooth Automatic Syncing Between Laptops

0bvious — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:35:59 -0800

Syncing between laptops: How can I easily and automatically sync files and documents between two laptops using Bluetooth? Ideally I want to load up one machine in the vicinity of the other and have all my recent data (documents/data/RSS feeds etc.) syncronised with NO hassle. Any good apps out there? I already have a not-very-portable WinXP laptop, with bluetooth. I am also awaiting arrival of a new ASUS EEE PC. I will probably end up installing Windows XP on it, but might opt to stick with Linux.

The internal Bluetooth was a key component of my purchase.

I am interested in using the Asus as a portable addition to my writing and reading routines. I'd love to load it up and have all my recent file changes synced on both machines without me doing anything. Just like the way iTunes syncs my iPod, but with Bluetooth as a sweet bonus.

I would also LOVE for all recent RSS feeds to be downloaded in FULL and sent to the Asus, ready for me to read on the train.

Any hints would sure be grand

Why does my laptop disconnect every 3 minutes?

sliderjc — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:49:33 -0800

Why does windows disconnect from my wireless network every 3 minutes? My windows xp installation disconnects every 3 minutes (to the second) but not my ubuntu installation on the same laptop. My housemates laptops don't do this, only mine. How can I fix this, i'm guessing it must be simple(ish) due to the precise amount of time it stays connected for.

Need help with Internet access with a laptop.

valleys — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:48:17 -0800

I have a couple of questions about accessing the internet when travelling with a laptop for the first time. Questions about travelling with a laptop which I've been given for work:

1) I assume wi-fi is available in most airports? I also assume it is not free. (Feel free to correct my assumptions!) How much will I typically pay for internet access? How does it work? Have laptop search for available networks, select one, follow the instructions, feed in credit card number? I assume this is relatively safe?

(I'll be in Toronto Pearson, Heathrow, Dhaka, various airports in India.)

2) In Bangladesh and India, if I don't get internet where I'm staying, can I take the laptop to an internet cafe and connect, or is it necessary to use their PCs? I'll have a power adaptor and network cable with me. Any security concerns? I've read about various means to thwart keyloggers if I'm using cafe computers, but enough to know that they're not perfect. What about if I'm using my own laptop ... any network concerns?

Any other advice? (Dell laptop running XP)

Why, why, wi-fi?

sprocket87 — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:50:18 -0800

Why does my laptop's wireless network fail to work after resuming from standby, requiring a reboot? The laptop in question is a Dell Vostro 1400 laptop, integrated Dell 802.11g adapter, Windows XP SP2. The adapter works fine and can detect and connect to the networks with no issue, normally. But it freaks out sometimes.

I'll give you a typical scenario:

I open the laptop on my lunch break at work and connect to my office WiFi network (802.11g, WPA, static IP). Works fine, stays connected through lunch. Shut the lid and take the laptop home after work.

Get home, open the laptop. It resumes from standby and I set the IP to DHCP. It sees my home network (802.11g, WPA, DHCP) and tries to connect to it, but fails. I've tried repairing/disable/re-enabling manually, hard-disabling the adapter from the laptop's front switch and re-enabling, and stopping the WZC service (which refuses to restart). When I do a repair, it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to disable/enable the adapter, and stalls at "Connecting" for several minutes, before it finally bails and errors out. No matter what, it won't reconnect until I reboot.

When I reboot it works fine (though the network services seem to take a long time to start). Even if I reboot with the IP still set to my work's static IP, I can change it to DHCP and it connects fine. (Point being that it requires a reboot for the interface to even work, and doesn't appear to be related to static IP vs DHCP)

Even stranger: If I reboot, it works fine until I shut the lid and go to standby again. If I resume, there's a 50/50 chance of it working again. It might work, it might not. It might work for 30 mins and then flake out, and nothing works but a reboot. Last night, for instance, I put the laptop in standby at home, then brought it to work today. I started it from standby during lunch and changed my IP and it connected fine. It died an hour later and wouldn't come back until I rebooted. Eh!??

I think it's a "bigger" network adapter issue. I also have a bluetooth module in the laptop and it works fine all the time, but if the WiFi drops then the Bluetooth doesn't work either. That's not even the same adapter! Is there a service that's flipping out or something?

Please throw any suggestions my way. It's not specifically related to one or even two wifi networks; it happens on whatever network I'm connecting too. It seems like it has to be an adapter issue!

Note that this system was originally Vista but I replaced it with a fresh XP install. Dell does have up-to-date XP drivers though, which I'm running.

Thanks!!

Give me internet and phone too

cashman — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:17:20 -0800

Help me use my phone's internet on my laptop, without disabling the phone. The phone is on Tmobile & has internet access. I want to use the phone's(Dash) internet on a laptop. Apparently you can buy a module that you plug the sim card into and put that into the laptop and voila, free internet access via the internet that the phone has.

But that disables the phone. Of course the option offered by them was to get a second line with internet on it - but no, you can't just get that, you'd have to get a phone plan as well, which ends up being forty or fifty bucks.

How can I have a working phone (at least receive calls) and use the free internet through the phone (Dash)? Is there a way to tap into the internet the phone has without taking the sim card out of the phone?

The phone can't be useless for large blocks of time.
Is there some other option?

Routed by my slow router

escabeche — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:24:37 -0800

Why is my brand-new router massively slowing my Internet connection, even when everything's connected with cables? There have been several slow router questions on Ask MeFi, but I couldn't find one that really matched my situation. We recently became a two-laptop family. Our first computer is a Thinkpad T42, which we had been using connected directly to the jack in the wall via Ethernet cable. Nice fast connection. We now have a MacBook Pro, so I bought a router (Belkin Wireless G) and connected that to the wall. The Mac works fine, but the Thinkpad now loads pages very slowly. What confuses me is that this is the case whether I run the Thinkpad on the wireless, or run a short Ethernet cable directly from computer to router. Why should the latter be any different from connecting the Thinkpad directly to the jack?

Some possibly relevant data based on my reading:

* Some posters mentioned that encryption from the router might slow things down. I _tried_ to encrypt the router when I set it up, but I think I failed; at least, I was never prompted for a password when I connected to the wireless on my Mac.

* The Thinkpad can run Linux or Windows XP, and the slowdown happens either way.

* I guess one possibility is that the short cable connecting Thinkpad to router is faulty; I only have one, so I haven't been able to check. Could a bad cable slow down the network connection without cutting it off entirely? It still works fine, just much more slowly.

Thanks for all help!

Could you help one more time?

ok — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 07:27:30 -0800

Is it possible to receive cell phone data plan from a laptop? My folks live in a remote part of Wisconsin where there only access to the net is dial up. When I visit them I can access the net through my treo 700. Is it possible for them to get a data plan like mine and use their laptop to access cellular signals?

Or does any one have any other solutions.

Update: I wrote a couple of months ago needing help for my folks who had given $4,000 to a sham company. Things looked bleek for them as far as getting any money back. Thanks for all your help in this matter. Was called yesterday by my dad, they got it all back.

Wouldn't have happen with out you.

Thanks to all of you that helped.

How to get my iBook to see the internet?

bilabial — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:31:38 -0800

My wireless router and my iBook G4 aren't playing nice. Our iBook G3 connects wirelessly without fail. This started not very long after we moved to the new apartment: my airport icon shows a full signal connection, or sometimes minus one bar, but when I try to load a page the result is a page that says I am not connected to the internet. When I turn off the airport and then turn it back on, sometimes it will be able to load the page. Lately that doesn't work, so I move onto the step of restarting the router and the modem. This isn't working lately either. So, sometimes it lets me on and bumps me off randomly whlie other times it won't let me online at all.

The router is a NetGear MR814v2, which the Apple store Genius Bar people say isn't the best model. They suggest I turn to a Linksys.

We have an iBook G3 that never has any problem getting online or staying online wirelessly. The fun part is that we have an ancient (five years old) Gateway that we plug into the router for downloading. At first, it seemed that the iBook G4 would get bumped when the Gateway went online, pointing maybe to an IP conflict. All three machines have their own IPs assigned, however. Now the Gateway is not necessarily downloading, or even on/connected to the router when we have this difficulty getting or staying online with the G4.

Do I really need to trash this router, or is there something else that can be done so I can go back to reclining on the sofa with my computer? (I'm tethered to a table that is just the wrong height for computer work and a new table is out of the question for quite some time.)

Help me fix my dead wireless before I kill again.

CunningLinguist — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 09:32:50 -0800

Does anyone have any idea why my laptop suddenly stopped connecting to any of the various wireless networks in my building, but connected immediately to CompUSA signal when I took it into the store this morning? Caveat: this question involves stealing wireless net access from my neighbors. Please don't lecture me about it.

I've been using the same three unsecured networks in my NYC apt building for a year and a half. There are others, but these three are the strongest. Last night, the laptop suddenly stopped connecting to any of them. It "sees" the networks, and the signals are strong, but nothing happens. I tried everything I could think of, disabling and reenabling, rebooting, even reinstalling the driver. Nada. After hours of this, I figured there must be something wrong with the machine and went to CompUSA to have an expert take a look. While waiting on the long line for service, I turned the laptop on and sure enough, it connected instantly to the store's unsecured connection and I surfed the net with no problem. But when I went home, I had the same problem.
So why would all the different unsecured networks in my building suddenly stop allowing me to hop on? And can you think of anything I can do to fix this? Because the lack of net access is making me twitchy and psychotic.

Morning routine for an internet-addicted college student?

Ash3000 — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 09:02:40 -0800

What is the best morning routine, especially for someone who is (a) in college and (b) wants to fight something starting to look like internet addiction? I have this problem with my morning routine - every path seems to lead back to the computer. Go outside for a walk before anything else? Then I come back in feeling even sweatier and more gross than I would otherwise, but I don't want to walk to the shower b/c our dorm shower is similarly grody...so I procrastinate on the computer. Wake up, take a shower? Well, then it's back to my room afterwards when I get dressed, and so long as I'm waiting for class to begin...back to the computer. Maybe I should stay in and clean my increasingly disgusting room? Sure, but after a while I realize I need to find the right music/podcast for that, and it's back to the computer for a bit that turns out long because I really, really need more memory for it...or something. (My laptop is beginning to look retirement-worthy.)

The worst part is that my computer use usually ends up being just going back and forth between blogs, e-mail, facebook, etc., without ever really reading things in depth - there's a calming to the back and forth. What should my morning routine be? I hate the idea that I'm wasting time better spent on the computer, but I don't realize how much has been lost until after the fact, and am beginning to get seriously creeped out.

Mobile Internet Access

Frasermoo — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:26:01 -0800

Is there a mobile international dial-up service for laptop users to get on the net? My friend travels abroad alot and wants to take a laptop to plug in to telephone lines and connect to the net. Looking for low cost and something that will work from a number of different countries. He is based in Canada so anything witha contract would probably need to be from there.
(not sure if there is a package that can allow b/band access where available?)

Am I forever stuck in wireless?

itchie — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 16:15:13 -0800

The ethernet connection doesn't work on my laptop. It's a Dell Inspiron 5100. When I plug in the ethernet cord to my on-campus ethernet socket (for lack of a better terminology, sorry), it doesn't recognize being plugged in. No web-related programs connect, and it says that a plug is disconnected. Trying IPCONFIG turns up the same thing - that something's unplugged. Any idea on how to make this work?

How to give Internet access to my grandparents but not the world

acoutu — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 23:05:30 -0800

How can I safeguard a Linux laptop with dial-up Internet access? I just gave my grandparents my old laptop, along with some pre-paid Internet access. Within moments of them attempting to send their first email, they got a virus. We got rid of the virus, installed a firewall, some anti-spyware stuff and several Windows patches...and promptly got several viruses.

After a few days of frustration, my husband converted the O/S to Linux running Firefox. He feels the chance of getting a virus is much lower. He set it so that the laptop loads Firefox on start-up and there isn't other software (e.g. wordprocessors) to give us tech support nightmares. We have set the email to go through Hotmail so that there is virus scanning and what-not. I imagine my husband has taken some other precautions, being a software engineer. But I worry.

Is there anything else we can do? My grandparents likely don't want to go with cable/DSL. They won't have the computer permanently plugged into the phone jack. But I worry about porn dialers and other 1-900 scams that will leave them with $1200 phone bills. (Happened to a friend.)

My grandparents are:
- in their 80s
- not tech savvy
- somewhat Luddite (they unplug the microwave between uses)
- not well-heeled
- not going to be using the Internet for purchases, banking or the like.
- just looking to send email and look at pics of the great-grandkids and maybe surf the web

Any other tips? I favour free/cheap ideas. :) Thanks.

Why do I have internet?

arcticwoman — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 18:07:28 -0800

I don't have wireless internet in my home, but here I sit in my kitchen reading mefi while my laptop is picking up a signal from... somewhere. I just got my first laptop today and it is configured to use either wireless or wired internet. I do have internet in my home, and a router, but not wireless. I live in a housing complex where my neighbours are only a couple of cinderblocks away, but the network I am currently connected to is called "default" and required no sign-in or security info of any type. Am I stealing someone's connection?

WiFi network issues when first connecting

jmackin — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 14:21:34 -0800

I use my work laptop at home, and have to switch network connections from local area connection to wireless network connection. The laptop finds the signal, but I always have to futz with the connection to really make it work. [more tech details inside] Once it finds the signal, it says "wireless connection unavailable." I then go back to the connection window, open the connection and check "allow me to connect to the selected wireless network, even though it is not secure." I can't find a way to make the connection remember that, so I don't have to go back into the screen and check that off. Is there a way of setting that so it finds the signal, and when it connects it stays connected?
(network novice here)