Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

New Laptop-Vista-Connecting to Internet?

I just bought a new Toshiba Laptop with Vista Home on it.

I have a desktop upstairs with Windows XP..

I have cable internet service through a cable modem and then to a linksys wireless & broadband router. With my old laptop, which also ran XP, I never had a problem locating the linksys network or availability and it ran fine.

With the new laptop, it shows several available networks that are secured but not my linksys network. Laptop is in the same room downstairs as was the old laptop.

How do I get the new laptop to identify and connect to my existing linksys wireless router?

To make things a bit more confusing, at one stage in messing around with the new laptop, a screen came up and it shows the linksys network and that it would load it automatically upon startup.....but it doesn't. Now what? What am I doing wrong? How can i fix it?

Update:

I'm not very literate in this PC stuff but I stumble around. I hate to take anyones time up on this but I don't have a clue when you all say things about WPA or WEP or whatever it is, security, etc.

In searching around I beliegve the problem is that my current Linksys Wireless Router (WRT54G) does not support Windows Vista. If this is true, do i need to buy another wireless router?

5 Answers

Relevance
  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    First off, I would try to set up my Linksys wireless router with a specific SSID with wireless encryption. Try to set up WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access) with at least personal. If you try to set up WPA2 - Enterprise, you will need something called a RADIUS server as an AAA server; but let me not go in a tangent here.

    Reason being, you really don't want other people utilizing your Internet connection. Believe it or not, in several states, without the proper consent of an individual who owns the Internet connection and wi-fi connection, is unlawful. Plus, it is a security issue.

    When setting up WPA2, select AES encryption and setup a strong passphrase. Write that all down and put on a piece of paper - secure it and a safe area.

    Now, back on your Vista laptop, refresh the listing of Wireless access points (or routers). Highlight the SSID that you named your wifi router. Provide the WPA2 Personal passphrase that you have set on your WiFi router. And you should be set to go.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    You may want to give a few more details about ur network. Did you put wireless security on it? If so which protocol did you use? WEP? WPA?

    Did you change the networks name to something unique? (instead of "linksys").

    You can figure alot of this out by going to your Windows XP computer and opening up a web browser. From there try putting in the address "http://192.168.1.1"/ - (or if that doesn't work, try http://192.168.0.1)./ If a log in screen comes up leave the username blank and put the password "admin".

    Browse through your routers settings and and check out the wireless setting n crap. It is a good idea to use security on your network. I'd suggest WEP to newbies since its a little more simple and people really don't try and hack them that often... if ever.

    If you discover all your settings are good and your comptuer just isn't locating your access point, it would be a good idea to first try restarting your laptop and seeing if it finds it then, and if that still fails you can go back to your browser with your router's setting and try doing a settings reset on it. This has ultimately fixed all my problems I've ever had with my router.

    And to the other guy, Windows Vista does not "suck." You are just ignorant.

    Hope this helps!

    Tim

  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    1. This could be caused by a Virus/trojan or un-wanted program. even w/ your cheap AVG spybot.. that is crap.. AVG is just another company scamming users to think it's good.. like Mcaffe and other.. Norton! anyway.. that is one possibility.... a fix would be to re-install Vista.. it's not Vista's fault.. probably your fault. *what do you do on the internet..* (don't want to know) 2. Get Firefox if your running internet explorer. But because you can't log online.. maybe reinstalling Vista will help.. ---- Tips: What was the last website(s) that you were on when this happened? Maybe don't go on it again.. --- Try to adding an Ethernet cable instead of using a network adapater.. if the same problems occur.. maybe contact your ISP( Comcast.. or Netzero.. whatever you use) ---

  • 1 decade ago

    Problem may not be your problem. What are the settings on your router? Is it a secured or unsecured network, is there MAC address filtering. I would start there.

  • How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
  • 1 decade ago

    vista is always the problem

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.