My Local Area Network Connection is acting up. How do I troubleshoot?

Question

My situation is very strange. My laptop LAN connection works at every other place other than my dorm room. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the driver (intel (R) PRO/wireless 3945ABG). Windows just tells me every time when I do a diagnose and repair that the Ethernet cable is unplugged and thats a lie.

Does anyone know anyways I can troubleshoot. I don't want to have to call HP (its a pavilion dv2000) cos I doubt if their tech guys can help.

Now, my dorm room connection is definitely not the problem because every other computer connects in my room.

OK..I think I didn't give enough details. The wireless connection throughout the dorm is very unreliable so most students connect to the internet through the LAN connection using Ethernet cables.

Now, my laptop connects to the LAN in every other dorm room except mine. Its ver puzzling to me.

Answer 1

You say your laptop works at every other port and other computers all work at the port that's giving you trouble. The only thing that I can think of that might cause that would be the port in your room being wired wrong. Other computers probably have auto negotiating network cards that can connect to either type of ethernet port. You might try a cross connect ethernet cable or a cheap, auto polarity ethernet switch between your computer and the port.

Answer 2

I assume you are using wireless? Then what has a cable got to do with it. It can not be your wireless card or it's drivers if it works elsewhere. You will be informed that the cable is disconnected if the wireless can not connect to the source. Alternatively it could be that it is simply reporting that the ordinary lan card is not connected. When using wireless this means nothing. So these messages don't help much.

Answer 3

plug annother pc into the cable thats givving you trouble if it dont work replace it ( the cable ) if it does replace the cable anyway