Hello All, I was advised by the Virgin Media NG to try here, so here goes:
Our setup is quite simple, Internet comes in via Vrigin Media cable to Cable Modem, which is then connected to wireless router (Safecom SWBAR-5400) and then the main PC is connected to the router by cable and a laptop by wireless.
It was all working reasonably well until we moved house and replaced the main PC with a new Vista one (which shouldn't make any difference to the laptop's wireless connection?) and had to reconnect it all up again. Eventually I got the settings sorted and the laptop showed clearly that it had picked up and connected to the wireless network (router) - but no internet connection! Then a new connection appeared (obviously I must have fiddled with something but I don't know what!) - it has its own connectivity icon in the right of the bottom taskbar (in addition to the wireless network one) and when I open Network Connections (the laptop runs XP) it is called "Internet Connection" and is in its own sub-section in the window called "Internet Gateway". When this is enabled and working the internet is fully available on the laptop. The strange thing is that I don't recall the laptop ever having this item before on our old setup when the internet worked fine on it. The worrying aspect is that a few times it somehow got disabled and stopped the internet connection and wasn't easily restored (not sure how I made it work again but a lot of resetting, rebooting, restarting etc seemed to do the trick in the end!).
I've looked all this up on the net and got loads of confusing and contradictory explanations, usually too technical, so can anyone tell me (quite simply please!) - is this separate "Internet Connection" needed for a wireless laptop to get the internet? If so, how do you keep permanently enabled? Is it safe to use? Why didn't we seem to need it before? And now something else strange has occurred: on the main PC, I can't get the router settings anymore (which I usually get by entering a certain IP address): when I look at Diagnose Connection Problems, I get the error message: "(router IP address) is not set up to establish a connection on port "World Wide Web service (HTTP)"" - yet the internet/downloads etc are still all working fine! What's happening here? Is it related to the laptop situation described above?? Should I be worried? (except for the fact that I can't get to my router settings)
(after all this I've postponed the next stage, to make a wireless network with the PC and the laptop, we're just grateful to have the internet working at the moment!!).
Many thanks in advance for any assistance/clarification with this.
MJK