I need internet connection help on a laptop!?

Question

Okay. Here is my problem/question. I am at work and bring my laptop with me. I use a cable that connects to the laptop from the phone jack. I have been doing this forever, but tonight, for some reason, I can't. It says I am offline. I know the cord works because I changed cords. I was wondering if I maybe need to change something on like Firewall or something else, and if so, please tell me what. By the way, I have looked everywhere already, and tried a lot of things, but nothing works. Any suggestions appreciated. I have a Dell Inspiron 1300

Answer 1

Just to be perfectly clear, there are two different types of cables that look like a phone jack at the end: phone cable and Ethernet cable. Phone cable is the regular size cable and Ethernet cable has the ends (the connectors) look like an over-sized phone cable connector. Either your cables have gone bad, or your network adapter may be acting weird. Right click My Computer, Hardware, Device Manager, and under Network Adapters, click the little plus sign on the left to further open the subcategory if it isn't open already. If there is any kind of image (i.e. exclamation point on yellow background, red X, etc.) on the icon of the adapter, then either it's off or it has gone bad. Double click the actual adapter you have and find troubleshooting in their.