Computer connection problem. Its my kids school computer, I need help.

[HBARleatherneck]

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[Ronin13]

Did you try resetting the router? Unplug for about 60 sec, plug back in, wait for it to reset itself and try to connect again.

[HBARleatherneck]

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[cfortune]

Windows machine I take it?

Press and hold the windows key then press "R". This opens up a run prompt. In the run prompt, type "cmd" and hit enter. This will open up a command prompt. From there, type "ipconfig" and hit enter. You should get a listing of all your network adapters and state of each one.

You should find at least one that displays IPv4 information, subnet mask, and default gateway. Can you verify that information is there and provide it?

[bigmyk2k]

What OS are you running? Guessing either Windows XP or 7. May need to enable the connection on the computer. Done different ways on the two.

[HBARleatherneck]

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[cfortune]

You want to type cmd in the run box then ipconfig in the black window that pops up. typing ipconfig in the run box runs the command but exits immediately after.

[HBARleatherneck]

its XP.

[Sawin]

Keep the laptop plugged in to the network cable, and restart the laptop, not the router. Once it boots back up, try going to someplace like google that doesn't require any browser plugins (flash, java, silverlight, shockwave, etc.) I had a laptop recently fail to load the default MSN homepage because of plugins, but other sites loaded alright.

[HBARleatherneck]

delete

[bigmyk2k]

You can do what cfortune is telling you, That will work too.
A quick step, just to make sure your connection is to open the Control Panel, and select Network Connections.
If you are plugged in, the "Local Area Connection" should have a status of "Connected". If it doesn't, right click "Local Area Connection" and select enable.
Just for fun, if it does show "Connected", right click "Local Area Connection" and select "Repair".
This may solve your problem the easy way.

[HBARleatherneck]

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[cfortune]

Nothing? sounds like either your adapter isn't being recognized by the OS for some reason (removed on accident, failed hardware, etc) or is disabled.

Gosh it's been a while since I've used XP.... Trying to recall how to look at your adapters to see if they just got disabled some how.

If you right click on my computer and go to "Manage", you should have a computer management window pop up. In the left hand part of that window, you'll see "Device Manager". Click that guy and it should populate the right part of the window with different device categories. Find "network adapters" and click the little arrow to expand it. That should display all recognized network cards. Of the ones you see, right click each one and see if you have the option to "enable" in the popup menu (I think they'll have a red X through the icon if they're disabled). If so, click enable and see if your network connectivity comes back.

[bigmyk2k]

Uh, I think that may be a hardware setup issue. I could probably figure it out looking at it, but I am not advanced enough to walk you through it without seeing what you see.
Sorry.
Hopefully one of the more advanced nerds here can steer you right.
Good Luck!

[cfortune]

if I go to network connections it shows nothing.


That doesn't sound good. Is this a desktop computer?

If you follow the first half of my previous post and get into the device manager, try right clicking on the very top icon (should be the computers name) and select "Scan for hardware changes". That might find the card and reinstall it (granted the software/drivers for it are installed). Technically a reboot should do this as well though.

[bigmyk2k]

If you right click on my computer and go to "Manage", you should have a computer management window pop up. In the left hand part of that window, you'll see "Device Manager". Click that guy and it should populate the right part of the window with different device categories. Find "network adapters" and click the little arrow to expand it. That should display all recognized network cards. Of the ones you see, right click each one and see if you have the option to "enable" in the popup menu (I think they'll have a red X through the icon if they're disabled). If so, click enable and see if your network connectivity comes back.

I'm an XP box at work, and that is exactly right.

[Teufelhund]

all it says is

window ip configuration

c:/documents and setting|linette>

cfortune's method is the quickest way to fix it IMO. Once you are at the prompt you posted in the above quote, run the following commands (hit enter after each one) and tell us what it says.

ipconfig
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

ETA: looks like there was some new info while I was typing my reply. Follow what cfortune is telling you.

[HBARleatherneck]

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[HBARleatherneck]

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[bigmyk2k]

Sorry. I got nothing.
Hardware failure?

[KevDen2005]

Did you try cleaning the porn off of it? That's my only computer knowledge! Ha ha!

[cfortune]

Yeah, sounds like hardware failure.

Do you know the brand and model of the machine? I might be able to track down the NIC software for you and you could try installing it. I doubt it'd work though (not very often do device drivers just disappear).

Do you have wireless in your house? If so, you could go pickup a small USB WiFi adapter and install it on the machine.

[bigmyk2k]

Did you try cleaning the porn off of it? That's my only computer knowledge! Ha ha!
[ROFL1]

[HBARleatherneck]

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[HBARleatherneck]

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[Delfuego]

Needs the driver for the USB wireless card

[HBARleatherneck]

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[sellersm]

When the network cable is plugged into the network jack on the computer, does it show a green light? orange? Any light at all?

[bigmyk2k]

If the router you have is a combo modem/wireless router, and the computer you are connected to this forum on is connected to it, you may be able to get into it through that connection.
Open a new window or tab in your browser and enter the ip address from the table below that is appropriate for the brand.
Alternatively, if that computer has a wireless connection, you may be able to open those settings, and get it to show you the password, instead of a bunch of ****. (Depends on the OS)

[TABLE]
[TR]

[bigmyk2k]

Uh, scratch that. What brand is your router?

[HBARleatherneck]

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[Canuckistani]

Your ethernet card that you had wired to the router took a crap.

[sellersm]

Not sure what happened to the NIC card.

What school is it? Do they offer any tech support, or is it your own equipment? My kids have done various online schools over the years...

[ChunkyMonkey]

Your router default password is "admin"

[HBARleatherneck]

delete

[sellersm]

The NIC (network interface card), or otherwise known as, an ethernet card. Might possibly be that after removing & reinstalling it into the PC, that it may awake from the dead, but I doubt it.

[sellersm]

Also, I don't know how slow the USB Wireless device is, but we never had any problems with our classroom stuff over wireless at our house. YMMV...

[cfortune]

Wireless these days is going to be much faster than your internet connection (wireless N is theoretically 300 mbps). The only time it is usually a bottleneck compared to wired is with local traffic (transferring files from one computer to another for instance).

You shouldn't notice any additional impacts that a wired connection wouldn't also present as far as internet bound bandwidth is concerned.

[HBARleatherneck]

delete

[Teufelhund]

While both are relatively slow, the difference in those speeds is negligible, and actually the kid's computer is a little faster (latency or ping is king). If you don't have any trouble with streaming media on the main computer, the kid's computer should be fine too.

[gos]

It's possible the router was configured to run in "bridge" mode instead of "NAT" mode, in which case the cable modem might only authorize a single downstream IP address. If you can switch your router to NAT mode, power everything down, power it back up, it may work, because then your cable modem will give it's 1 allowed IP address to the router, and the router itself can give IP addresses to every machine downstream of it.

--gos

[Teufelhund]

It's possible the router was configured to run in "bridge" mode instead of "NAT" mode, in which case the cable modem might only authorize a single downstream IP address. If you can switch your router to NAT mode, power everything down, power it back up, it may work, because then your cable modem will give it's 1 allowed IP address to the router, and the router itself can give IP addresses to every machine downstream of it.

--gos

That would be a possible cause if not for the other evidence HBAR supplied which indicates either hardware failure in the PC (the network adapter) or a missing driver.