Unidentified Network/IP Address Conflict Problem - Local Only Internet (Vista)?

Question

Okay, so my boyfriends laptop (a couple of years old, Acer Aspire) won't connect to the internet all of a sudden, and it appears to only have occurred since he first connected his Ipad to the same network.
Often when he turns the laptop on (around 9 times out of 10) it says 'local only' where the internet information is, but sometimes after several times of repeatedly turning it on and off (and the router) it will finally connect. This morning however it won't at all.
Often when trying to connect to the internet, a dialogue comes up explaining an 'IP address conflict'. His computer runs windows vista and he has tried literally everything under the sun, he has attempted to update the driver this morning, only to be told it is already the latest version.
Don't know what to do! We have both tried everything to our knowledge and more, and none of the fixes on google seem to be effective. Even PC World failed to do anything of any use!
Please help, anyone who is good at networking etc, this has been going on for several weeks, he's desperate!

Laurence I · Accepted Answer

Right then lets see how best to approach this

what we need to make sure is you have best chance of connecting

1) TCP IP properties, you get there by doing properties of the connection you use.
....so Control Panel Network Connections, right click do properties of the connection
...then click TCP IP and  choose properties of that.
...This MUST be set to AUTO assign IP, Gateway MUST also be AUTO assigned
....and DHCP must be enabled.
2) some old wireless cards and old router chipsets do NOT properly implement
...PASSKEY security. This is because Driver software and Windows is kept
...Up to Date, but chipsets don't know about improvements. So low(None) security
...has High chance working WEP has HIGH chance working WPA less chance
...WPA-2 has LOW chance of working when chipsets are old.
3) Router MUST have DHCP enabled. ie IT is IN CHARGE of allocating IP addresses.

so what can cause your errors.

1) Manually set IP address will cause a conflict, eg if two devices are set to 192.168.1.3
...then router cannot allow this. So make them AUTO
2) incompatible security between different age chipsets may result in Connected yes
....but OPERATIONAL no, because software cant determine a valid security.
3) Local only means the GATEWAY value was NOT assigned. this can be caused
....if it has a manually assigned value and not an AUTO one.

so to sum up then

1 force your router to be DHCP enabled

then on each pc/device
2 edit each device and make sure IP's are auto assigned
3 make sure Gateway is also auto assigned
4 make sure DHCP is enabled
5 in your router try lowering security PASSKEY method to WEP

finally if it still wont work
then some routers allow you to specifiy which IP value is actually assigned
to a PC or device. Maybe someone has configured this IP table and typed
in the SAME IP for two devices.

thats as much as i can help

? · Answer

When you get an answer let me know,I have exactly the same problem.

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Unidentified Network/IP Address Conflict Problem - Local Only Internet (Vista)?

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