Well, that was not exactly calming and destressing

[oursin]

My netbook is refusing to acknowledge that it has a wireless adapter and can connect to the internet.

As of this morning.

A very nice young man described by the receptionist as 'our IT guy' (I do not think this is his main role on the staff, somehow) took an extended look at it, ascertained that there is too a wireless adaptor, but also that it would not connect via cable either, and suggests that there is some setting blocking access.

Any suggestions on this gratefully received.

He has very kindly lent me a spare laptop so I can get online - there is a public terminal but one doesn't really want to spend very long on it.

However, on the good side, Wake Up and Stretch, walk, cranial osteopathy (in the course of which I discovered that certain headaches I've been having are to do with low blood pressure, who'd a'thought?), and yoga. And the usuals.

Comments

[mme_hardy]

My previous netbooks (Samsung NC10 and N120) actually had small nearly-invisible switches on the front that turned off the wireless adapter, and were easy to bump. My current one, an HP, has a little illuminated button on the keyboard, which is better.

To check whether your wireless adapter is active, (gah this is SO windows-release dependent) right-click the My Network icon, click Properties, and look around for something called "adapter settings" or the equivalent. That will tell you if your adapter is actually on. If that fails, right-click My Computer, click Properties, and go to the Device Manager to see if it thinks the wireless card is on. In both cases, there should be a setting in that window to turn the adapter back on, should it be off.

And sorry about the blood-pressure-ness.

[mme_hardy]

Also, type Help Firewall -- or go to the appropriate Help menu and click Firewall, and check that the firewall isn't doing something rooty-fruity.

[legionseagle]

When I have the problem at clients, I usually blame the client's firewall.

[mme_hardy]

I tend to blame an angry \God\Microsoft\, but that's just me.

Microsoft has such awful diagnostic error messages -- they're precise without being accurate. I have spent more time chasing obscure router settings as demanded by Xbox/Windows only to find the problem was in the firewall...

[oursin]

The blood pressure thing is weird, because usually when I have it taken people go 'yay! lovely low blood pressure', so the concept of downsides (beyond the getting dizzy if I stand up too quickly after stooping down) takes a little getting used to.

I think The IT Guy did all that: and now I have a functioning loaner laptop, think I may leave tinkering until I am at home. When it will probably snuggle confidingly up to the home network and go 'Hi, honey, I'm home', sigh.

[legionseagle]

Techsupportbear says, Have you tried rebooting the wireless router?

In the circumstances on the Mac I often go into the disk utility and first ask it to verify disk permissions and then repair them. It may be a superstitious ritual but it sometimes works.

[mme_hardy]

^^^^ points up at techsupport bear. You should ask them to reboot *both* the router and modem, if the two are different physical entities.

[oursin]

The router is out of my hands but appears to be working - I can connect via this loaner, anyway.

[badgerbag]

What netbook and OS? On the other hand, maybe work will buy you a new netbook.

[oursin]

It's a Samsung NP-N110 running Windows XP Home Edition. As it's my personal netbook I don't really see any reason why work should buy me a new one! as it is we have to check out a laptop from IT if we need one to e.g. do a site survey. Any new netbooks - and I still think of this one as the new one even though I was recently calculating it must be 2+ years since I bought it - would be on my plastic.

Last Ditch

[lsanderson]

My standard last ditch measure is to delete/uninstall the offending part in Control Panel > System > Device Manager > Network adapters. Of course, it's most handy to have the driver available after you do this, which might entail downloading it on another computer and putting it on a thumb drive...