How do I set up a wireless network on my laptop?

Question

I have a TP Link (TL-WR542G) router and TP Link card for my Toshiba Laptop. It says that it is connected, but I cannot get the page to come up. (Page not available offline I believe). I also have very strong signal. I am working with BellSouth DSL if that helps? Thanks!

Answer 1

There are several things that can cause this problem. If you are connected, then check your network connections. If you have any others, they might be interfering. Try disabling them.

The firewall on the router might be blocking all traffic. I am not familiar with your specific router so I cannot give you specific details on fixing that.

Another thing to check on your laptop it the IP address and the gateway address. To check this, click on Start, then Run. Type CMD in the box and click OK. This will bring up a black command prompt window. Type IPCONFIG and press Enter.

Look for the line that references your wireless network adapter. Beneath it you should see some lines that look similar to this:

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.59
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1

The numbers may be different than what I have. Often, the IP address will start out with 192.168.xxx.xxx In any case, make sure that the IP address and Default Gateway are not 0.0.0.0 If they are, you have problems you may need to get someone in to look at it that know a bit more about networking.

Also, the first three numbers of the IP Address and the Default Gateway should generally be the same. The fourth number should be different. The Default Gateway should actually be the IP Address of your router.

At the command prompt type "Ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" without the quotes and replace the x's with the Default Gateway address. If you get a response like this:

Pinging 10.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 10.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 10.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

You are communicating with your router and you can move forward. If you get anything different, you may have some issues connecting to the router and it is time to get a network guy over to look at it.

If your addresses don't match, then try going to your network connections in the control pannel. Right click on the wireless network adapter and click properties. In the scroll box, look for "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" Highlight it and then click properties.

On the general tab, you should have selected:

* Obtain an IP address automatically
* Obtain DBS server address automatically

After this is set correctly, go back to the command prompt. Type "IPCONFIG /RENEW" without the quotes. This will attempt to get a new IP address. If you obtain an IP address successfully but you still cannot browse, you may have a problem with the router connecting to the DSL modem correctly. In which case, you will need to get a network guy over to help you out.

Hope this helps.