bamboozled by little Sony Laptop

[Lex]

My daughter had her/my little Sony laptop PC working directly with a cable modem connection at her apartment.

Well, we went to get her PC and bring it home the other night, as I told her leaving all her electronics at the apartment was a huge security risk with her not being there.

Anyway, she tries her computer using a wireless card, (linksys), but without luck. She was first under her account, but then went to under mine which originally was the main account. I guided her about deleting the existing driver for the card, rebooting, installing driver, rebooting then trying card. nothing. no lights on card, it's like it's not recognized.

I've since finagled with this thing myself repeatedly trying to get connectivity to work and haven't been able to.

Last night I was even trying a hard wire access, and wasn't even successful. It's somehow like it expects that Comcast modem, and nothing else.

I'm really flumoxed this time, and usually these issues are but a minor inconvenience.

I went to the system properties/hardware/device manager tab, troubleshooted the SCSI connection, it seems fine. I disabled and re-enabled. the card makes a sound when you plug it in, but it never shows in the icon tray, and there is no network icon in the icon tray either, except for the hardwire connection, showing it's not active.

I was thinking that this should show both the SCSI connection Icon, and the card network connection for SCSI. It's really like that doesn't even exist, and if I try to add a new connection, either I am not sure what to add, or the option is gone?

Weird problems. Kevin, help!

Doug

[Kevin P]

Ok, first of all, a network card isn't a SCSI device.

A hardwired connection should work. Does the laptop have an ethernet port built in? Comcast doesn't use any special software for connectivity, it's just an ethernet connection with DHCP. You should be able to plug into a router or another cable modem without any issues. Were you plugging into a router, or straight into your modem? Straight in requires the modem be power-cycled. Through a router, should work no problem.

What kind of Linksys card is it? You could try downloading new drivers for it off the Linksys website, and install those. Uninstall the existing drivers, reboot, install new drivers, reboot, then insert the card.

Also, is there any firewall software running on the machine (third party, not the one that comes with XP)? If there is, perhaps it's configured funny and not allowing a connection. Try disabling it temporarily and see if it helps.

With the laptop hard wired in, go to a command prompt and type "ipconfig /all" and report back what it says.

[Lex]

ok, going from memory without a laptop here, whatever the SMALL card slot is, that's what I meant by scsi. wrong accronym, sorry it was early. PCMCIA is what I MEANT.

Kevin, it was a new card, I just bought a few weeks ago, and the CD matched the card. I cannot explain why the hard wire would not work to my hub/wireless router. Unless it was a bad cable possibly. I can look for another cable to try.

[Lex]

I'lll do what you said later today when I am at the laptop. Or whenever I can.

The only firewall I saw was the XP stuff I "think".

[Kevin P]

Yep, PCMCIA is it.

Have you tried the card in another laptop? It could be a bad card. Also, do you have any security (WEP, WPA, MAC filtering) set up on your router?

Could be a bad cable too. But what are the odds of that happening to The Cable Guy? :B

[Lex]

who knows about these cheapo computer cables, I'm not even sure where that one came from I pulled out.

I had the card working in my picturebook at last try a few weeks ago, it was still plugged in there. So, yes, it was tested, though not same day/week tested.

[PewterTA]

okay, when you insert the card and it recongnizes and configures it... The only thing you should have to do is go into the properties for the wireless card, it should automatically detect your wireless network. Then you tell it to use that (double click on it I think) and you will need to put in your "access key" that can be found by either accessing the router, or if you have another PC, look in the same spot and it will be there. This "key" is to keep others out of your network and keep it more secure.

That should be all there is too it. Since she's using a wired connection at her apartment, if it doesn't want to pick up the wireless then it might be (for whatever reason) stuck on the wired link and wanting that. You could try disabling that one and just leaving the wireless working.

If you can't get it working, go to Start -> Run and type in 'CMD'. This will bring up a command prompt and then type in "ipconfig /all" and post it here/PM me, I can then tell you what's wrong and what you need to do to get it working.

If you are using the wired connection and it's enabled on the laptop, go back into the command prompt and type in "ipconfig /release" then after that do a "ipconfig /renew"

If you do the "ipconfig /all" it should show you an IP address with your router listed as the gateway and the DNS servers filled in with the proper IP addresses from your service provider. If it doesn't, try a "ipconfig /flushdns" and "ipconfig /registerdns" and it will pull that info back down to the PC.

Course it's not always a bad idea to reboot the router/modem and see if the PC connects too...

[Lex]

ok, all great ideas. I played last night, before reading here again, and still nothing. I connect the cables on the hardwire connection, and it says it's unplugged. I'll reboot the router tonight and see what that does. I've done no security on the router.

The card light won't come on, and I never see a network icon in the tray so I can't go in properties. It's as if the card doesn't exist. So, as far as my changing the settings, difficult to do.

I'll look tonight or this weekend at this darn thing.

Oh yeah, I did turn off a firewall last night on the laptop that I thought might have been preventing connection.

[Kevin P]

Try another cable. It shouldn't say unplugged if it's plugged into the router. Maybe the cable you're using is a crossover cable instead of a regular one. Try another port on the router as well.

Have you tried the wireless card in another lappy, such as one of yours?

[PewterTA]

So if you go into the device manager the card isn't even listed in there? (Right click my computer -> Manage -> Device Manager... It should be listed in there...

If it's not showing up down by the time, then Right Click My Network Places and go to Properties, it should be listed in there. If it is, right click again and go to properties, there is a check box to display the icon on the start bar.

[JOY DIVISION]

Maybe Sony has an update, for your settings, Maybe a router reset might do the trick. Or I suspect your PCMCIA card on your laptop is a DOA.

[Lex]

Ok, you all have all these ideas, how about I just send this to someone to fix, or maybe I should call "GEEK SQUAD". I just seem to have a low tolerance level for this sort of thing now.

I'll try something sometime this weekend I guess. It's not been ultra high on my Priority list rating well below a nap when I got home yesterday, lol.

Lex

[Lex]

I had some other cables that I knew worked, blue ones and could not find my spares 2 days ago. I also used to have a real long cable I know worked, not sure what happened to it. Drat, I hate to loose things.

[Azeke]

Try the cabling, also, she may have a static ip address assigned to the LAN card. Use Ipconfig /all to check these settings (Start, Run, cmd).

Just a quick thought,

Azeke

[Lex]

I rebooted the router, put a cable in I felt should work ok, and got the hard wired connection working. Then I had to go to work on virus/adware. Ad Aware cleaned off over 400 objects the first pass, and more after I stopped it to clear the first 400. There were a lot of things not removable, so this concerns me. I'll check the thing out further from here as I can.

[whoaru99]

Some of that spyware stuff can be really tricky to remove. I've had pretty good results using (don't shoot the messenger) Microsoft's AntiSpyware software in addition to AdAware.

Then, there are some that just refuse to go away until you find a specific removal tool and or get the instructions from one of those computer tech forums and hand remove (i.e. edit registry) the stuff.

Unfortunately, it can be a quite laborious process. Too bad some of those guys/gals wouldn't put their talents to good uses.

[Azeke]

I rebooted the router, put a cable in I felt should work ok, and got the hard wired connection working. Then I had to go to work on virus/adware. Ad Aware cleaned off over 400 objects the first pass, and more after I stopped it to clear the first 400. There were a lot of things not removable, so this concerns me. I'll check the thing out further from here as I can.

You need to run Adware in safe mode, this would keep certain services from starting. I also run Spybot, which captures things that Adware may miss. Also for insurance run whatever virus software you have in safe mode as well.

Best regards,

Azeke

[Lex]

I had spybot screw me over once, and been scared of it ever since. I basically had an entire windows system screwed up by it I think. So, I'd never trust it again.

I'll print the list of what it's saying it can't wipe sometime soon.

I did get the wireless working again, so for now she can at least surf with it, and best of all, I get MY laptop back. before she screws it up too. lol.

[Lex]

oh, now that I don't need it, I found my super long network cable, lol.

[Azeke]

oh, now that I don't need it, I found my super long network cable, lol.

Isn't that always the case? :rofl:

Azeke

[Lex]

always Azeke. I was about ready to go buy a new 25 foot cable to have here. But now that I found my 50 footer, I will use it next time I have a glitch, yeah, it's a bit excessive for 10 foot away, but at least I don't have to buy another one. I'm really tired of buying stuff like this over and over.

[Kevin P]

How'd you get the wireless working Lex?

After you peel off as much spyware as you can with Spybot & AdAware (try running MS AntiSpyware too), run Hijack This and post a log and I can advise you on other things to remove.