[wsrehab]

My wifes employer finally realized that he needs to break into the modern era and finally bought computers for their small facility. He also got Verizon DSL for the facility. My wife has been asking the maintenance guy to install the network wire (her boss is not that up to date... he should be going wireless) to her office for 2 months now with no luck. I finally went in last week and wired up her office. When I tried to connect her laptop to the network and the internet I had no luck. Here is what is happening...

The lights on the modem are flashing. The lights on the laptop are flashing. The "warning" said that there is limited connectivity. It seems that the computer is seeing the modem, but the internet can't be reached. There are 3 computers connected directly to the modem. The original 2 work fine. My wifes... well that is why I am here.

I have been on the phone 2 times with tech support from the company that installed the original network and DSL and they have been less than helpful. We have tried diferent IP address', rebooting the modem, and what seems like a million other things short of blowing up the whole system.

I have tried connecting the laptop directly to the modem (thinking my wiring was bad) and no luck. I brought the laptop home and connected it to my home Verizon DSL and it connected to the internet immediatly. I took my personal laptop into her work and it won't connect. My thought is that it is in the modem settings and the settings on the laptop are not matching. I am also thinking that there may be some sort of security settings that are blocking me. When I do a "repair" to the connection it hangs on the renewing IP address and then gives me an error message.

The laptop is an IBM thinkpad. The modem is a Diamond ADSL modem + Wireless 802.11G Router + Four Port Switch model #DSL642WLG.

Any advice would be helpful!

Thanks in advance

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If you connect the laptop to one of the ports being used by one of the computers that are working, does it get online?

[Kurenai]

If you connect the laptop to one of the ports being used by one of the computers that are working, does it get online?

[wsrehab]

No it doesn't

[Kurenai]

Well, it's an issue with the laptop itself. What error message, specifically, do you get when trying to repair the connection?

[wsrehab]

When I do a repair, it hangs as it tries to seek an IP address and eventually times out saying it couldn't repair the IP.

As a way to narrow down the problem I had my wife take her personal laptop (not her work one) in to see if that would connect and it did the same thing. This is why I don't think it is in the laptop, other than possibly the settings somewhere.

[Kurenai]

Is there any MAC filtering enabled on the wireless router?

[wsrehab]

I'm not certain if there is or isn't. Is there an easy way to determine this?

[Kurenai]

You'd have to check the settings in whatever router is controlling the network. All security options will be there.

[wsrehab]

Just went into my wifes work this morning to see if I could get the darn thing working and here is what happened...

I set the IP and DNS manually. I used the settings for the DNS supplied by the tech guys from an earlier phone call and set the IP to a high number (192.168.0.210). I actually got the computer to say that is was connected. I still had no internet access.

I found out the network name and set up the network for the work network. Still can't get the internet. When I go to "My Network Places" the box is empty. When I go to "view network computers" it only shows my wifes computer.

One more twist to this is that there is a yellow box in the quicklaunch task bar with an "!" in it. When I hold the curser over that yellow box it tells me that "updates are being downloaded. Of course it is stuck on 5%. So somehow something is getting through... I think... but not the internet. Hmmmmmmm......

Hope this helps someone figure out what is happening. It is just confusing me more.

Thanks!

[wsrehab]

Almost forgot... When I try to connect to the router through my wifes computer to check the settings, it will not allow me. Checking through the office computers may be a problem. Her boss is a jerk and actually hinted around to me today that I caused a total failure in their network last week... And I wasn't even there last week to work on the computers. He's computer illiterate.

[Kurenai]

Honestly, it sounds like you just need to call the ISP or modem tech support, and have them walk you through checking the security settings on the modem to see what's blocking you. It sounds like there is MAC filtering set up.