[street9009]

Over the past few days, I've been in the process of wiping out my hard drive and starting fresh. Last night I finally got XP installed properly and the hardware and drivers going. Then, to my dismay, I found that it's nearly impossible for me to coax it into getting an IP address.

I suppose my home network's setup is important so I'll describe that briefly: I have two computers in the house, a desktop and a laptop. The laptop is the computer I formatted, and it is supposed to connect to a router via the wireless card that came with the router. The desktop is also connected to the router, hardwired. Then the router is obviously connected to something, in this case a cable modem.

So, last night after I got XP back up, I tried to get it back on the internet. I couldn't get wireless to work at all (more on that proglem in a moment), so I took it to the router and borrowed the desktop's networking cord and hardwired in. It took some doing, but I finally got a connection that way. Thinking perhaps it was a driver problem, I got the latest one from linksys (for the wireless card of course), and then just to be safe, got all the windows updates from microsoft (except SP2).

Then I tried the wireless card again. And after some uninstalling and reinstalling of the card, it managed to get an IP and accessed the internet. And through a few restarts, it managed to keep working. So I shutdown and went to bed.

This morning, I started it up just to check the weather before going to class, and found that nothing I did would make the wireless card work. It connects to the router (as in it gets a connection), but won't access the internet. ipconfig /renew times out. I'm at school right now and am going to try hardwiring to the router again when I get home this afternoon.

I don't know what else to do. Not sure if its an XP bug or what. If anyone can shed any light on this, I'd be appreciative.

Thanks alot for reading.

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A quick follow up: I am now at home and have found another significant piece of information. No matter which connection I try to use on the laptop (hardwired or wireless), it takes a while on startup to even recognize that it's there, if that makes any sense. I'm guessing all that means is XP sits for a while waiting for an IP and doesn't get it. But that rules out any problems with the card itself. Its gotta be on the computer, if my logic is correct.

[street9009]

A quick follow up: I am now at home and have found another significant piece of information. No matter which connection I try to use on the laptop (hardwired or wireless), it takes a while on startup to even recognize that it's there, if that makes any sense. I'm guessing all that means is XP sits for a while waiting for an IP and doesn't get it. But that rules out any problems with the card itself. Its gotta be on the computer, if my logic is correct.

[street9009]

Well, I'm back online via the wireless card again. Hopefully this time it lasts. I upgraded the firmware while I was at it so maybe that fixed it.

[Abbess]

Try the microsoft patch KB884020hwhich addresses the problem:
click here for the microsoft web page