Help--wireless connection is "excellent" but no internet!

Howdy,

I'm having a very frustrating problem on my Acer aspire one XP verison netbook.

The wireless icon says that my network is detected and the strength is "excellent," but in truth, I don't seem to have any internet access and I cannot even access web pages..

If it helps, the connection worked great before all the acer aspire one updates went through upon start up since I was browsing the web as the updates were updating and installing, but now...nothing.

I've got a $400 machine that gets internet connectivity as well as a brick and it's getting frustrating.

 

Do you have any experience with other notebooks? Since you're on XP it should be easier to pinpoint your problem. You're AAO is not a brick. The wifi connection just got messed up somehow by the update of some other factor. The mere fact that you say the connection is still at excellent, then that's not entirely bad news. Seems like the wifi is detecting the network, but cannot get the proper DHCP info to allow you to access the internet properly....

1st things 1st... check if your connection gets the proper DHCP settings. Meaning, check your IP address, subnet mask, gateway and DNS info. See if it matches what you're wifi router settings. 2nd, what browser are you using? On occasion XP updates will reset the IE proxy settings to AUTO, thus will try to detect the network's proxy setting. If there's non, theres a tendency to hang and hence make it look that you have no connection. Go into IE internet options and UN-check the automatically detect settings checkbox on the LAN settings. Another possibility is the XP firewall is stopping your AAO from connecting. There are alot of factors, so you'll need to provide some info so that we can help you better.

For now, you can do this... open command prompt and type "ipconfig". Check if you have the right IP address gateway and DNS settings. If you do, check if your AAO can contact the router properly by pinging onto the router's IP address. Do those 1st then check back here on what you see on screen.

 

There are lots of threads on this. Look for wifi problems, etc.

The icon shows connected and so does the network manager: an attempt to repair the connection generally results in the icon disappearing altogether, along with the adapter in the hardware section of the system control panel. You can get them back, along with your connection, by shutting down the computer and rebooting (restart does not work generally).

The solution seems to be to update the driver to the latest available (7.1.6.160 as of now) and flash the bios to 3305. After doing that, I no longer have wifi issues. Stays connected all day at home. Connects to other access points and stays connected.

Links for the 7.1.6.160 driver and bios 3305 are in previous threads. Search the forum.

There is hope.

 

thanks for your responses guys,

I ran ipconfig and as far as I can tell everything seems to line up. I pinged the ip address that is under properties for my router (which matchs the default gateway ip when I ran ipconfig from my aao) and it pinged back just fine. I checked the LAN settings but the automatically detect settings box was already unchecked. I tried repairing the connection, shutting down and rebooting.

still the same...i have an "excellent" connection but in reality i'm not sure i'm connected to anything.

brian

 

This is kind of obvious, and you probably already did it...but have you rebooted your router? Sometimes I lose my socket at the isp, and have to unplug the router, wait 2 minutes, let it reset, and plug it back in so it finds a new socket.

 

Yes, i unplugged the internet cable from the router, let it sit a few minutes, then plugged it back in. Still the same problem. I am already thinking about just returning this laptop, this is ridiculous. I have spent hours searching online for a fix for this and...nothing.

 

My guess is your router is not assigning an IP to your laptop.
Unplug the power on the router and leave it about 30 seconds so it will reboot.
You can see what IP has been assigned by clicking on the network icon in the tray and then clicking on support.