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unable to connect my desktop to Internet[solved]
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:40 pm
by raghavan20
I recently had a OS crash and I re-installed windows xp on my system. I have installed the LAN drivers and others. My PC uses Netgear wireless adapter and I have installed the software for it to run. Everytime, the PC is on, it shows the signal strength is excellent and it is connected to the Internet but it is not. I am not able to try with an Ethernet cable since the router is running two floors above from the PC.....any guesses??? Fyi, The wireless adapter works fine when connected to my laptop
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:35 pm
by pickle
When you say it isn't connected to the Internet, how do you know? Are you getting an IP? If so, then your hardware is talking to the router just fine - the problem must be higher up in the stack. What happens if you try to ping your router?
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:39 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Also, are you connected to *your* router? I've set Wi-fi networks up for a few people and without WEP windows just keeps trying to scan for "Available Networks" and seems to enjoy hopping onto other people's networks. In that case your MAC address may not be bound for DHCP and hence, you're connected to the router but have no IP as pickle says.
I assume you've done the obvious checking of the ESSID etc?

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:58 am
by raghavan20
I have some answers for your questions.
The icon on the system tray says it has excellent signal and connect to our network which is named as default.
when I pinged, ping 192.168.0.1
it could not reach router
when I tried ipconfig -renew
it said it is not able to contact DHCP server
WEP is not enabled as of now...when I tried to enable ... it asks to put some key which I do not know... we have a network key for our network which I enter it in a place where it shows all available networks and then I hit connect button...
SSID has two options, connect to the nearest router or to default (which I think is my network name). Now, I have changed from to choose default.
when I type in ipconfig now, it displays the following:
auto-configuration ip: 169.254.120.235
subnet mask: 255.255.0.0
dns suffix: empty
gateway: empty
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:28 pm
by a94060
raghavan20 wrote:I have some answers for your questions.
The icon on the system tray says it has excellent signal and connect to our network which is named as default.
when I pinged, ping 192.168.0.1
it could not reach router
when I tried ipconfig -renew
it said it is not able to contact DHCP server
WEP is not enabled as of now...when I tried to enable ... it asks to put some key which I do not know... we have a network key for our network which I enter it in a place where it shows all available networks and then I hit connect button...
SSID has two options, connect to the nearest router or to default (which I think is my network name). Now, I have changed from to choose default.
when I type in ipconfig now, it displays the following:
auto-configuration ip: 169.254.120.235
subnet mask: 255.255.0.0
dns suffix: empty
gateway: empty
could it possibly be that there is another network also called default(not a big chance,but worth a try.)
for the WEP key,you should just make 1. the values will have to be HEX(0-9,A-F)
then just type that in for you network adapter and it should work.
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 2:58 pm
by raghavan20
I am extremely sorry that I forgot to update that the problem has been solved. It was because of wrong network key. the netgear tries to connect to with wrong key and says connected even if it is not actually connected....