Wireless connection on Dell laptop

piskins72

My other half has just bought a Dell Laptop. we have broadband in with eircom in the house, but the new laptop will not connect properly to it, my network is not a secure one, its open, due to eircoms fault, so I didnt envisage any problems with connection.

it will connect for a few mins and then loose it again or else it is very slow when it does connect, any ideas? my own laptop is working perfectly with broadband. its picking up loads of other secure networks around my estate and even signal sterngth is stonger than my own one is.

can i make the connection a secure one that both laptops run off, and would i have to buy a stronger modem?

any help appreciated as its a bit head wrecking at this stage!!!! :mad:

ethernet

You're right to want to encrypt the network ASAP. Use WPA and not WEP encryption. Make sure the key/password is a good one: mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers. Make it long too.

How are you trying to connect? Are you using the tool build into Windows? Are you using the latest drivers for the laptop's chipset and WLAN device?

Are you using any MAC access control list to prevent any devices other than your own from connecting?

piskins72

ethernet wrote:

You're right to want to encrypt the network ASAP. Use WPA and not WEP encryption. Make sure the key/password is a good one: mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers. Make it long too.

How are you trying to connect? Are you using the tool build into Windows? Are you using the latest drivers for the laptop's chipset and WLAN device?

Are you using any MAC access control list to prevent any devices other than your own from connecting?

yes have tried both dells own tool and windows one, it will connect for a few mins, shows an excellent singal sterngth and that, but once I go to load pages it vanishes!! its a broadcom internal wi fi card that is in it.

ethernet

Have you tried changing the channel used by your router? Worth trying, especially if there are lots of other wireless networks in your area.

piskins72

ethernet wrote:

Have you tried changing the channel used by your router? Worth trying, especially if there are lots of other wireless networks in your area.

thanks for the tip, it worked!!! ended up I had to update eircoms firmware for the modem as it was running under an older version, once i got that done i was able to change the channel easily enough n also make network secure

ethernet

piskins72 wrote:

thanks for the tip, it worked!!! ended up I had to update eircoms firmware for the modem as it was running under an older version, once i got that done i was able to change the channel easily enough n also make network secure

That's great ... until you're swamped with even more wireless networks in the area! Happy web browsing .

MarkR

Do you have a tv sender or baby monitor in your house? They also run on the e2.4ghz frequency and could have been causing interference. Changing the channel would have sorted it.

Tom Dunne

MarkR wrote:

Do you have a tv sender or baby monitor in your house? They also run on the e2.4ghz frequency and could have been causing interference. Changing the channel would have sorted it.

Or it could be a neighbour with a bogey TV-sender.

piskins72

tom dunne wrote:

Or it could be a neighbour with a bogey TV-sender.

so strange u say that!!! it only happened a few weeks ago with the car, with a bogey TV sender interfering and the central locking wouldnt work! wonder now how u knew that

turns out it may have been the cordless phone effecting it also i was told, all working proper now anyways, mr piskins 72 is grateful for the assistance