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 answers total)

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

Response by poster: 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

Response by poster: 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

Response by poster: 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

Response by poster: 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

Response by poster: 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