Wireless troubleshooting

Hello--I am in Nicaragua and I am trying to conenct to a wireless internet connection with my US based version of windows XP SP2. it shows that the wireless signal is strong, but I am unable to connect. Thoughts and suggestions?

thanks

Matt

Reply to
matthew.bartek
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snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com hath wroth:

Wi-Fi rules for Nicaragua are the same as the US so you should have no problem connecting. Since you supplied no information as to the nature of your problem or equipment, so I can't help you troubleshoot the problem. It might be something as simple as the wireless access point requiring an encryption password. This is especially true if you don't own the access point.

Meanwhile, try your computer on a public hot spot. See:

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Thanks for your response, Jeff. Let me try and give you a little more info and maybe you can help! There is no encryption on this network-- no password needed. When I go to connect as usual, it simply looks and looks for the IP address for about 5 minutes and then bunks out. I don =B4t know what else I can tell you. I am going to try to ping the router although I=B4ve never done it before, so any advice there would be very welcome. Any other thoughts? Thanks again for your response.

Matt

Reply to
matthew.bartek

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com hath wroth:

With no encryption, that means that either the DHCP server on the wireless router is disabled, or that the DHCP client on your computer is disabled. You state that it "looks for the IP address for about 5 minutes" which I read to mean that you have pre-assigned the IP address in your client. That may be the setup at home, but it's not the correct or most common setup for hot spots and public access points. Set yours to "get IP address from ISP". I'm not going to advise you how to setup you client, because I have no system details. However, I would suggest that you check your settings. You will not be able to ping the router until you have a valid IP address. Use IPCONFIG to display your current settings.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Jeff Liebermann hath wroth: (...)

Another possibility is that the wireless router has MAC address filtering setup. Your wireless client's MAC address is not in its configuration file. The symptom is exactly as you described. You get a strong signal, an initial connection, but no DHCP assigned (or static assigned) IP address.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

how exactly can I fix this? You obviously know more than I do about this issue or possible issues. Also, I checked and whenever my computer tries to connect to a network, it sends information, but does not receive info. thanks for any further help you can offer.

matt

Reply to
matthew.bartek

The MAC address filter is in the web based configuration of your wireless router. Since you didn't supply the model number, I can't offer "exactly" how to fix this. Look at the configuration pages. Look for something called "Wireless Security" or something similar. There will be a page that lists authorized MAC addresses. If the page is blank, or the feature disabled, don't worry about it. That's not the problem.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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