Help! Trying to get a Wi-Fi laptop to connect to the internet through a BT home hub.

jak731 · 30 Jun 2007 at 19:23

Same as above. Trying to get it working for a friend.

Their is already a computer hooked up to the hub through a ethernet cable which is working fine, their is also a wireless phone connected to the hub through a"BT Fusion Adapter" via another ethernet cable connected to the hub, so both ethernet ports are occupied. The hub also has a Wi-Fi style arial and has wireless writen on it (the fusion adapter also has one of these arials).

The laptop is Wi-Fi enabled but when it searches for a wirelss network it cannot find any in range, no matter how close it is to the hub. Any help would be much appreciated.

Mattus · 30 Jun 2007 at 19:28

Home hubs are generally pretty bad, my internet is loads better since I lost it for a Linksys router.

Is the wireless light lit on the front of the HH? Presume you've tried restarting the laptop? There's not a little WiFi switch hidden on the laptop somewhere?

jak731 · 30 Jun 2007 at 19:38

The light on the HH is happily flashing away and their is no obvious switch on the laptop (laptop is an "Ultinote M9000"). The laptop at first had the WLAN 802.11g Network Adapter disabled, I enabled it and restarted the laptop but the problem remaines.

Tk7 · 30 Jun 2007 at 21:08

Do check to see if there is some sort of switch to turn the wireless on off. it isn't always an actual switch or button, a lot of laptops use the Function (Fn) key + F? for the on/off, ie Fn+F2

Failing that, does the HH have any sort of 'pairing' button? I know some of the Orange Liveboxes have this sort of thing. You have to press it before you can make a connection. Wether this would make the network appear or not i'm not sure.

jak731 · 30 Jun 2007 at 21:45

D'oh, I am n00b with laptops, Fn+F2 enabled the Wi-Fi, even a symbol on the key. Thanks Tk7.

Found the network straight away, asked for a key which I found on the back of the HH.

Still got a problem though! After entering the key I get a "Limited or no connectivity" message in network connections even with high signal strength (still can't use internet). After trying to repair the connection windows says it cannot renew the IP adress. Not really had this problem before, so not sure what to do.

Tk7 · 30 Jun 2007 at 22:47

Hmm, you sure you have the network key right? If it's wrong it won't tell you, it'll just do as you've described.

If you have any doubts over the network key, you could always connect this laptop using an ethernet cable, and either copy/paste the key from the router setup page, or just temporarily disable the security to test it.

If that doesn't work, maybe try reinstalling the driver for the wifi card. Just open device manager, right click and uninstall the driver, then go to Action on the top menu and Scan for Hardware Changes.