Broke mate's laptop - help!

silvine

Hi,
I borrowed a mate's laptop to install some software for him. I plugged it into my Mac and into my NTL router and it worked fine. However, when he took it back he found his wireless internet connection had stopped working.

He uses Vista. The laptop says it can find the router and the signal strength is excellent but it can only make a local connection. His internet connection and router are definately working as his room mate can use them. Also when he connects the laptop to his router with an ethernet cable the internet works. So basically I've banjaxed his wireless networking. (I played around with file sharing when I had the laptop although I don't see how this could have affected it)

Help! What can I do to fix it for him? (Apart from ringing NTL)

djspringer

hey sounds like a networking issue , try ping the wireless routers ip address if you know it , also try pinging www.google.ie for example if they work it could be an issue with chaning dns settings or it could be a problem with your firewall not trusting the wireless connection

MunsterCycling

Get the friend to check his routers DHCP and see if the laptop is getting an IP, if it can scan and see the wireless network then it is more than likely the network key that has been messed up or his housemate changed it while you had the laptop...


MaCs :rolleyes:

MarkR

What software were you installing? Check your firewall settings to see if his wireless network adapter is listed as a unsafe network adapter. See can you reach router config page. As you are getting local access I don't think it's a dhcp problem. Seems common on vista. Chose the diagnose and repair option in networking. Failing that, delete the wireless profile and recreate it.

MunsterCycling

Or change the network from public to private.

M C

silvine

Cheers for the responses.

I don't think it's a problem with his network key as I tried to get it working with my own wireless network and the same issue came up ie local connection possible only. I installed Office, a game, Firefox, iTunes and AVG. I also asked him to turn off the firewall and reconnect. The same issue occured. Also when I asked him to click on diagnose and repair Vista said it couldn't fix the problem.

I'll be calling out to him tomorrow to try some of the above suggestions. Anything else I should do?

vir7ual

Open internet connections and disable Internet Protocol V6 (TCP/IPv6)

this is a common problem with vista, and for some reason its down to the v6 of the internet protocol. it only allows you local access.

Disable and restart the computer. if you do not know how to get to where you disable this from, post back here.

silvine

Thanks. I've a vague idea how to do that but I don't have Vista to fiddled around with myself.

Can you tell me the steps so I can ring him and call it out to him over the phone?

MarkR

I am sure the problem is AVG. AVG lists different network adapters as either safe or unsafe. Default is unsafe. Open the user interface, go to tools, firewall settings.

Expand the network profile you are using, and you should see something about adapters (on linux now so can't check exactly what it says)

Change from unsafe to safe.

mordeith

MarkR wrote: »

I am sure the problem is AVG. AVG lists different network adapters as either safe or unsafe. Default is unsafe. Open the user interface, go to tools, firewall settings.

Expand the network profile you are using, and you should see something about adapters (on linux now so can't check exactly what it says)

Change from unsafe to safe.

OP
My neighbour is having the same problem. You can see the suggestions by board members on how to fix it here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055407927. I haven't managed to fix it but she has AVG on it as well so MarkR's suggestion might work. I'll try it myself and see

calex71

MunsterCycling wrote: »

Or change the network from public to private.

M C

This WILL work based on what the OP said about the problem, just occured due to moving network connections from friends to his one and back again.

in the system tray click the network icon and choose network and sharing center then click customize over on the right and set to private.

MunsterCycling

From experience, happened to me, two locations same SSID,network key, different routers etc so I had to mark the network as private and voila on the net.


MC

silvine

Fixed it. Much obliged for the help everyone. It was a problem with the public/private settings.