BurbMan
Long Island, NY
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OK, I'm appealing to the gurus here on the forum. My daughter is away at college with her Dell laptop, and has had no previous issues connecting to the campus wi-fi. On Monday, she booted up and it wouldn't connect to the network.
After 3 hours on the phone with Dell tech support, bouncing between the hardware desk and the wifi desk, they told her there was nothing more they could do, she needed to contact her network admin. Made sense, Vista pops up the bubble that says "wireless networks in range" but it won't connect to any of them.
Next day she goes to the campus network admins with her laptop, they play with it for about an hour and declare thay they don't know what's wrong.
Now, it will connect via ethernet cable just fine. There are no conflicts or issues in device manager, they deleted and reinstalled the wifi card driver at least twice. It sees the network, which to me would indicate the wifi card is working, yet won't connect to the network. The network guys confirmed that all the TCP/IP settings are fine and don't understand why it won't connect.
Any ideas where to go next with this????
On a positive note, she downloaded the Sprint connection mgr software, and got online by tethering her Samsung Instinct, which is connecting at EVDO Rev A, and seems to go faster than the campus wifi....BUT that's not solving the root issue....
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Relayman
Arizona
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May be too simple a solution but I had a similiar thing happen in a hotel. Came to find out that I had inadvertently hit the wifi on/off slider switch on the front of the notebook. Saw the networks just fine, but wouldn't connect. Once I sheepishly turned the switch back on - connected!
Relayman
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Gene&Ginny
North Kingstown, RI
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I don't have Vista so I can't help directly with that but a year or so back I had a similar problem. Everything looked good but my LAN (and WiFi) connections would stop, sometimes a reboot would help for a few minutes then it just stopped even though everything was "good". I wiped out my disk, reloaded XP pro fresh, reloaded all my programs, reloaded all my saved files and it worked .... for 2 days and stopped. I removed Norton AV and evrything worked fine. I now use Avast AV.
IF she is using Norton, check the "properties" of the wireless connection (don't know if this works the same in Vista) and if "Deterministic Network Enhancer" is checked, uncheck it and "apply" it. This worked a while for me but messed up my VPN connection to the company I worked for then.
Gene and DW Ginny
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wtravlr1
Palm Harbor, Flordia, and Geneva-on-the-lake, Ohio
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Might try turning off the firewall and see if it helps.
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You can't take the Fisherman out of this Camper
Ontario, Canada
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wtravlr1 wrote:Might try turning off the firewall and see if it helps. I've had a similar problem connecting through an external wi-fi card. Turned off the firewall... tried again and connected!! I then turned the firewall back on and it continued to connect properly after that, even with the firewall remaining on! It's worth a try.
1960's: Tents.. 1970's: Soft top & Hard top P/U.. 1980's: 17' RV.. 1990's: 24' RV.. 2000's: 2002 Cougar 276EFS & 2005 Laredo 29GS; 2002 GMC 2500HD Ext Cab 4x4; (Nfld/Labrador-Yukon/NWT/Alaska-Gaspe', Que./Florida!!)
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Redapple
CA
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Several things to check besides the obvious:
1. Is WIFI turned on (I am sure it is)
2. Competing Anti-Virus programs and Firewalls can cause connectivity issues with WiFi
3. Verify the securty settings match the requirements of the network you are trying to attach to (sometimes they get changed or deleted inadvertently
4. Windows Update sometimes replaces drivers that cause issues
5. If it it is a newer Dell, check for hardware issues. Intel 5100AGN WiFi card has Vista connectivity issues
Good Luck!
Bill
2006 Damon Daybreak 32ft
2007 Honda Accord Hybrid
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BillArf
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Has a "System Restore" been done to a time just prior to when the connection issues began?
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fpresto
Maryland
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Check the simplest things first. I had a similar thing to Relayman. My Dell has a slider switch on the side that disables the transmit side of the WiFi. It will see the networks but not connect. I felt pretty stupid after an hour of troubleshooting my network.
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Geozzz
South Jersey
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fpresto wrote:Check the simplest things first. I had a similar thing to Relayman. My Dell has a slider switch on the side that disables the transmit side of the WiFi. It will see the networks but not connect. I felt pretty stupid after an hour of troubleshooting my network.
times 2
Kathy & George Zimm
Mickleton NJ
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BurbMan
Long Island, NY
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Thanks, I bought the Dell for her when she went to college and she's a junior now (can't believe it...), so that make it about 3 yrs old. Has worked fine up until this week. Bill, the Dell techs did a system restore to last week when wifi was still working and it still didn't solve the issue.
Thanks for the clues about the wifi switch, that may just be the issue....my Dell has a software switch for wifi, ie function-F2 turns wifi on/off. However, when it's off, it's off on both TX and RX so it won't see any netowrks either. IWhen I asked, she didn't have a wifif icon on any of the the F keys, so there very well may be a hardware switch, I will call her today and tell her to look. Will also have her check the AV settings, I forget what package is on that machine, Dell was using Norton and/or McAfee for a while.
Thanks for the odeas and I;ll report back/
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