Laptop suddenly can't see my WiFi router!?

Drugness

Hello all
My old Inspiron 1300 has been playing a blinder for years. Last week, my laptop was working fine, no issues with WiFi signal, nothing. One morning, I turn it on and it can't see the Wifi router at all. It is able to see other WiFi routera in my apartment building. Seems very strange
My flatmates laptop is still picking up the router fine, as is my Android phone....so I'm guessing it's not a router issue.
I've tried a System Restore back to a date when it was working fine but that didn't help
Have I suddenly acquired a virus of some sort?
If anyone has seen this problem before and knows how to sort it, I would be most grateful!!!
Take care
DG

Alanstrainor

You need to make sure your router is configured to support older 802.11 modes. Old devices, (such as your epic laptop!) only work on the g band, whereas anything modern will use N.

I reckon this is a decent root cause guess for this issue! Here's hoping you get a couple more years out of that beast!

Drugness

Alanstrainor wrote: »

You need to make sure your router is configured to support older 802.11 modes.

Many thanks, Alanstrainor!
Can you kindly advise how I do this?
Cheers matey!

Alanstrainor

Drugness wrote: »

Alanstrainor wrote: »

You need to make sure your router is configured to support older 802.11 modes.

Many thanks, Alanstrainor!
Can you kindly advise how I do this?
Cheers matey!

You'll have to either use someone's laptop that can connect to the WiFi or get s cable to plug into the router. If you have this you can access the router by typing in the IP address of the router into your browser:

Click start
Click run
Type "cmd"
Type ipconfig into the black window.
It will tell you the Gateway address (most likely 192.168.1.1)
Open a browser, and type this Gateway address into the browser.
You should see a login page, the user name and pass should be on the bottom.of.the router.

Once in here you'll have to search for wireless settings, And look out for anything that mentions 802.11, make sure this says that it will transmit g and n if possible. I suspect it is set to only broadcast n...

Drugness

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Drugness wrote: »

You'll have to either use someone's laptop that can connect to the WiFi or get s cable to plug into the router. If you have this you can access the router by typing in the IP address of the router into your browser:

Click start
Click run
Type "cmd"
Type ipconfig into the black window.
It will tell you the Gateway address (most likely 192.168.1.1)
Open a browser, and type this Gateway address into the browser.
You should see a login page, the user name and pass should be on the bottom.of.the router.

Once in here you'll have to search for wireless settings, And look out for anything that mentions 802.11, make sure this says that it will transmit g and n if possible. I suspect it is set to only broadcast n...

Brilliant! Thanks a million!!!

Alanstrainor

From the details you've outlined, I would bet money it's this. But I can't be certain! Let us know how you get on.