Hi everyone: I’m having an extremely frustrating problem connecting to my Netgear DG384G v3 wireless router in my flat.
In short:
Ever since I reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows XP Pro, internet browsers do not detect a connection to the internet despite a wireless connection being detected in the network connections (and the icon in the system tray) when my wireless adapter is plugged into my PC. Connection problems only occurred after the reformat, another PC in my flat connects wirelessly to our router with no problems (before, during & after the time I reformatted; I’m posting this using his PC) and the router config settings have definitely not been changed in any way so its not a router problem. It appears that the wireless adapter is able to detect a signal from the router but the router is not sending information to the adapter (I can’t even connect to the router setup IP address 192.168.0.1)?
More detailed:
1) I wiped the PC’s harddrive then reinstalled Windows XP Pro – I thought the recovery disk would have drivers with it (like others I’d used) but it didn’t so I had to manually find nVidia chipset & 3com Ethernet controller drivers and SP1 (for USB 2.0 functionality), download them on another PC and transfer and install them on mine. I got SP2, this didn’t change anything, I changed back to SP1, still no change to connectivity.
2) When my Netgear WG111 v2 wireless adapter is plugged into a USB port, Windows recognises it as a device connected to the PC.
3) My Netgear DG384G v3 router is working normally – the power light is on, the internet light is on and the wireless light is on, all are green, the internet light blinks intermittently as normal, the other two are solid.
4) When the wireless adapter is plugged into the PC, wireless networks are detected and I can detect and connect to my Netgear router using the same WEP key and SSID as before (set at the time of router setup and not changed since). Bubble comes up with “Wireless Network Connection 2 (NETGEAR), Speed: 54Mbps, Signal Strength: Very Good”
5) When a browser is opened and set to any website the DNS error screen (“The page cannot be displayed, The page you are looking for is currently unavailable” etc) in IE, “Server not found, Firefox can't find the server at in Firefox
6) When opening Internet Explorer, the bar at the bottom of the window displays “Detecting proxy settings” for a few seconds before the DNS error comes up.
7) The router settings cannot be opened via a browser, either by using the router setup CD or by typing into the address bar. The same error msg is displayed in IE, Firefox displays “Unable to connect, Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 192.168.0.1”
8) I can connect to the router setting page in the above way using my flatmate’s wireless connection to the same router.
9) Opening up the properties of the wireless connection shows that data packets are sent but not received, e.g. after leaving the wireless connection on for 4 hours – 15000 packets sent, 0 packets received
10) I tried bridging the wireless connection with the 1394 Net Adapter connection in “Network Connections/LAN or High Speed Internet”, this had no effect. reversing this also had no effect.
11) All settings (IP etc) were set to be automatically provided, no effect.
12) I looked at my flatmate’s connection settings (IP address, subnet mask, DHCP server etc) and manually specified as many of them as I could on my connection, no effect.
13) I used my flatmate’s connection to go into the router settings and manually specify my PC’s Physical address (MAC no.) as being always allowed to connect, no effect.
14) I effectively turned off the router’s firewall (by setting it to allow incoming connections on all ports), no effect. Changed it back, no effect.
15) I removed the WEP, no effect (not likely to be the cause anyway, since I can connect to router using the WEP key as described).
16) All other functionality of the PC is 100% normal; no devices are listed as not having drivers installed in device manager. PC is running SP1, ISP is AOL though I have been unable to find the AOL CD so I’ve not tried reconfiguring with that (but I didn’t use the AOL CD to start-up in the first place when the internet worked before the reformat)
The fact that no data is being received in the connection properties thing seems to suggest that the router is not recognising the PC or some such thing that is preventing the PC access the internet connection despite detecting and apparently connecting to the router’s wireless signal. Perhaps some networking device is not working / hasn’t had software installed for it?
I would appreciate it if anyone could help, if I’ve left out any information you might need to solve the problem them please let me know. I’d also like lists of any possible things it might be (e.g. suggesting to check the firewall even though I’ve said I’ve checked it and it didn’t have an effect) just incase I’ve missed something on one of my checks that someone knows to have caused a similar problem from experience.
I’ve not yet tried wiring the router into the back of my PC since that would involve temporarily moving the PC into the living room and since the problem doesn’t appear to be with the router and it’s the wireless connection that’s giving problems I don’t see what wiring it up would achieve, even if it could connect to the net that way. Of course if I’m wrong, please let me know & why connecting to the router via an Ethernet cable could help my wireless connectivity when the router is setup and working already.
I’m all ears.
Kind Regards,
Michael Barker
In short:
Ever since I reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows XP Pro, internet browsers do not detect a connection to the internet despite a wireless connection being detected in the network connections (and the icon in the system tray) when my wireless adapter is plugged into my PC. Connection problems only occurred after the reformat, another PC in my flat connects wirelessly to our router with no problems (before, during & after the time I reformatted; I’m posting this using his PC) and the router config settings have definitely not been changed in any way so its not a router problem. It appears that the wireless adapter is able to detect a signal from the router but the router is not sending information to the adapter (I can’t even connect to the router setup IP address 192.168.0.1)?
More detailed:
1) I wiped the PC’s harddrive then reinstalled Windows XP Pro – I thought the recovery disk would have drivers with it (like others I’d used) but it didn’t so I had to manually find nVidia chipset & 3com Ethernet controller drivers and SP1 (for USB 2.0 functionality), download them on another PC and transfer and install them on mine. I got SP2, this didn’t change anything, I changed back to SP1, still no change to connectivity.
2) When my Netgear WG111 v2 wireless adapter is plugged into a USB port, Windows recognises it as a device connected to the PC.
3) My Netgear DG384G v3 router is working normally – the power light is on, the internet light is on and the wireless light is on, all are green, the internet light blinks intermittently as normal, the other two are solid.
4) When the wireless adapter is plugged into the PC, wireless networks are detected and I can detect and connect to my Netgear router using the same WEP key and SSID as before (set at the time of router setup and not changed since). Bubble comes up with “Wireless Network Connection 2 (NETGEAR), Speed: 54Mbps, Signal Strength: Very Good”
5) When a browser is opened and set to any website the DNS error screen (“The page cannot be displayed, The page you are looking for is currently unavailable” etc) in IE, “Server not found, Firefox can't find the server at in Firefox
6) When opening Internet Explorer, the bar at the bottom of the window displays “Detecting proxy settings” for a few seconds before the DNS error comes up.
7) The router settings cannot be opened via a browser, either by using the router setup CD or by typing into the address bar. The same error msg is displayed in IE, Firefox displays “Unable to connect, Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 192.168.0.1”
8) I can connect to the router setting page in the above way using my flatmate’s wireless connection to the same router.
9) Opening up the properties of the wireless connection shows that data packets are sent but not received, e.g. after leaving the wireless connection on for 4 hours – 15000 packets sent, 0 packets received
10) I tried bridging the wireless connection with the 1394 Net Adapter connection in “Network Connections/LAN or High Speed Internet”, this had no effect. reversing this also had no effect.
11) All settings (IP etc) were set to be automatically provided, no effect.
12) I looked at my flatmate’s connection settings (IP address, subnet mask, DHCP server etc) and manually specified as many of them as I could on my connection, no effect.
13) I used my flatmate’s connection to go into the router settings and manually specify my PC’s Physical address (MAC no.) as being always allowed to connect, no effect.
14) I effectively turned off the router’s firewall (by setting it to allow incoming connections on all ports), no effect. Changed it back, no effect.
15) I removed the WEP, no effect (not likely to be the cause anyway, since I can connect to router using the WEP key as described).
16) All other functionality of the PC is 100% normal; no devices are listed as not having drivers installed in device manager. PC is running SP1, ISP is AOL though I have been unable to find the AOL CD so I’ve not tried reconfiguring with that (but I didn’t use the AOL CD to start-up in the first place when the internet worked before the reformat)
The fact that no data is being received in the connection properties thing seems to suggest that the router is not recognising the PC or some such thing that is preventing the PC access the internet connection despite detecting and apparently connecting to the router’s wireless signal. Perhaps some networking device is not working / hasn’t had software installed for it?
I would appreciate it if anyone could help, if I’ve left out any information you might need to solve the problem them please let me know. I’d also like lists of any possible things it might be (e.g. suggesting to check the firewall even though I’ve said I’ve checked it and it didn’t have an effect) just incase I’ve missed something on one of my checks that someone knows to have caused a similar problem from experience.
I’ve not yet tried wiring the router into the back of my PC since that would involve temporarily moving the PC into the living room and since the problem doesn’t appear to be with the router and it’s the wireless connection that’s giving problems I don’t see what wiring it up would achieve, even if it could connect to the net that way. Of course if I’m wrong, please let me know & why connecting to the router via an Ethernet cable could help my wireless connectivity when the router is setup and working already.
I’m all ears.
Kind Regards,
Michael Barker