Why can't I surf the web on my laptop that has wireless? Is it due to connection being "fair" or "very low"?

Question

It says wireless network is now connected, signal strength: Very low. I can click on IE icon and get to the yahoo page of google page when i type them in. but when i type in a search word and go it says "internet explorer cannot display the page" WHY?

Also, when i open the connection window and check for available connections nothing comes up, it says none available so how is it that I am connected?

Answer 1

Could be many reasons.

Most likely, it could be that your laptop isn't actually connecting to the wireless network properly. It may see that there is a network out there, but you may not be authenticating to the router properly, or that network is using encryption and you need the encryption key.

Of course, signal strength will affect things too. "Very Low" probably isn't going to give you a very reliable (or fast) connection.

The reason your IE displays something when you first open it is because web browsers can cache web pages. Since that page doesn't change, the browser just uses the copy it stored on your hard drive, as opposed to going out to the internet and fetching it from there. Of course, when you go to do a search, the browser needs to go out to the internet - which then brings up the problems I mentioned above.

Try getting a better connection first - move closer to the router for instance. If it still doesn't work even with an "Excellent" connection then it may be an issue with how the configuration is configured (encryption/password) or it could be that the router only allows certain machines to connect - and yours isn't on the list. These problems will require you to talk to the administrator of the router.

Answer 2

LAN settings ?
default browser ?
connection speed ?
ISP requirements ?
Internet options -LAN-automatic
>Under tools- diagnose connection problems<
refresh the page
these predictions based on IE7