When i try to connect to the internet via wireless it says connecting but never connects.?

Question

then it says not connected but i can still access the internet for about 5 minutes then it drops the connection and i have to do it again. Any help would be greatly appriciated thanks

Answer 1

Let's cover what you need to get Internet access to more than one computer at home, via wireless LAN (local area network).

1. You order or use your existing Cable or DSL Internet access.

2. Your Cable or DSL company sets up your Internet access and typically either rents or sells you a Cable or DSL network bridge. They often refer to this as a Cable or DSL “modem”. Actually a complete misnomer since the device does NOT modulate or demodulate, nor does it convert analog to digital or digital to analog.

Prices for Cable or DSL Internet access vary from approximately $19 per month to $80 per month in the United States. This varies based on bandwidth, location, and provider.

At this point you have what is commonly called “Broad Band” or “High Speed” Internet access.

Now you want to share that high speed connection with more than one system. You want to be able to cart your laptop all over the house and stay connected to the Internet as you do so.

1. Confirm that your system has a wireless adapter or get one and install it. You need one of these for each computer. USB type are better. USB type that are 802.11n are best.

2. Get a wireless router. I recommend the D-Link DIR-655. Get D-Link n series USB wireless adapters if you get the D-Link wireless router. If you get a Linksys wireless router, get Linksys wireless adapters. They work BETTER together if they are the same brand. This isn’t a requirement, merely a suggestion.

3. Plug the wireless router directly into the Cable or DSL network bridge via an Ethernet cable.

4. Unplug the electrical cord from your Cable or DSL network bridge for 30-45 seconds.

5. Plug the power cable back in.

6. Check the Cable or DSL network bridge for green lights.

7. Make sure that the properties of TCP/IP are set to Obtain IP address automatically, and obtain DNS automatically on ALL of your computers.

8. Turn on or reboot your system(s).

Now you should be able to stay connected to the Internet with all of your computers.

If you can not access the Internet from every computer:

Attempt to log in to your wireless router via your web browser (internet exploder or Firefox) by typing in http://192.168.1.1/
Then log in using admin and admin typically. Be sure to change the password to something of your own choosing.
Enable DHCP by following the instructions in the manual for your wireless router.

You only need one wireless router for you wireless LAN. One wireless router can accommodate up to 253 wireless computers. You can use combinations of wired and wireless routers together but typically one wireless router is sufficient for all your needs.

For security:

1. Don't announce the SSID of your wireless router.
2. Use WPA2 if you can. WPA-PSK if not WPA2, or WEP at the very least.
3. Put the MAC addresses of all of your computers into the MAC routing table of your wireless router and ONLY ALLOW from the addresses in the table of the wireless router.
4. Turn the SPI firewall of the wireless router ON.
5. Filter anonymous or incomplete packets.

If this all seems too complex and complicated to do, use local.yahoo.com to find a wireless network professional near you.

Answer 2

The IP Address given in the long explanation isn't correct for all Wireless Routers. My Belkin uses 192.168.2.1, and others use different ones than this. Linksys uses the one he wrote out.

He provided a great deal of accurate information. However, I think you already have an internet Service Provider-ISP, and a Wireless Router.

What you are having trouble with is your actual connection. Because you can connect for a bit of time, this means your connection itself is valid, which is to say your ISP service is up and running properly.

Several things could be going wrong. First off it could be a bad adapter. Try using a different adapter, either by taking one out of another computer which is working correctly, or purchacing a new one which you can test. If it works you can just keep it. If it doesn't you can return it for a full refund, if you purchased it from a local store and not an Online store. Online stores often charge a "restocking" fee.

If using a new adapter works, all is good. If not, you may have a bad driver. Try installing an updated driver from the manufacturers website. Make sure you first set a Restore Point via System Restore. It is simple to do and a good practice to get into before making any changes to your system be it adding software, (which drivers are) to changing settings, working in the Registry, etc. Rolling back to a System Restore point can undo a lot of damage.

If updating to a new adapter driver doesn't work, it could be that your Router is having problems. This could be several things, from the DHCP not working correctly, or the address translator failing, to just the hardware itself failing.

Because the Router can be having any number of issues, I suggest you contact the manufacturer's technical department. Please remember than there are levels of technicans, usually up to three levels. If the first tier can't help you have them esculate it to a higher level. Keep going up till you get to three. Usually level 3 technicians can do about anything!

Now, there are a few things you can do to test your connection. When it the connection goes down, close out your browser and reopen it. When the page announcing it can't connect, read what that page says. It will give you an option to try repairing or test your connection. After running the test it will then give you the trouble area, or as near as possible, at least helping you to get some idea of the nature of the issue.

If your Internet Connection icon down in the notification area has a red X across it, you can right click it and select Repair. This will flush the old connection and reinstiture a new one, or that is a broad explanation of all the steps the Repair option does for you. When, or if, your connection is reastablished, you will get a pop up message down by the notification area stating that it is connected again.

Sometimes a reboot of the modem is neccasary. Unplug your modem for about thirty seconds and then plug it back in. Wait for it to reastablish connection, reboot your system and see if this fixes the issue. You can usually tell if a reboot is required by your wireless connection icon not having a red X across it and the page when you open your browser is blank. You don't even get the words that it can't open the page. Just a totally blank page.

There are other trouble shooting techniques you can use but it would be difficult to explain them all here. One which you can try is pinging your other computers and websites to see if the connection itself is viable but you might be having a hardware issue. This can also tell you if your address translation service within your router is working correctly.

Open a command prompt and type ping, after a space type an IP address of one of your other computers. This program will send off four packets and then wait for a response. It is fast. If all four packets come back then the connection itself is good.

Now, type: ping, then insert a space and then type the URL of a popular website such as http://www.yahoo.com. If it comes back with the IP Addess then your address translation is working fine, otherwise you know you have a problem with it. The ping utility will state "Pinging X and after that the IP Address will be in brackets, [ ].

These are just two ways to check your connection. There are several others. You can access these in Help Center. Click on "Networking and the Web" link in Help, (or whatever wording your system gives you for this category, different ones such as Dell and HP use different wording, but the main concept is the same) will open up a page with several options on the left. Click on the on for troubleshooting, which will provide both tools and articles to help you get started.

If all this just seems like too much effort, contact your router manufacturers technical support team. You can find this either in your user manual, or at the website. There is no shame in having to call for help.

I hope you find out what is wrong with your connection so you can get back to enjoying the net. Have a nice evening.

P.S. You already have an IP Address or you wouldn't be able to get Online for even a moment. So, that was a totally silly answer, unless the person didn't bother to read your question.

Answer 3

Your computer needs an IP address. Setup your wireless access point and network card for DHCP.