Laptop sticks at 'Waiting for network to be ready' step

joker77 · 02-01-2010 01:25AM #1

Hi there,
I'm trying to connect a Toshiba Equium L10-300 laptop onto my wireless network. It won't connect - just keeps sticking on the 'Waiting for network to be ready' step - the Wireless Network Connection dialog says Acquiring network address.

The history - I've just wiped the laptop today and reinstalled XP, then went to the Toshiba site and got all the network / wireless drivers etc. All these installed fine and there are no notifications in the Device Manager area, so everything appears to be fine...

No ideas what's causing this, as the laptop I'm posting this on connects / disconnects fine from the wireless network

dub45 · 02-01-2010 03:29AM

Could you try it in another wireless location to see if the problem is with your network or the laptops settings?

joker77 · 02-01-2010 11:34AM

I could yea, but I don't think the problem is with the wireless network as my main laptop has been using it for months, the router sits nexts to a PC which is wired to it and that has no problem, and also my mobile connects fine and people's iPods who call in can connect with no problem.

I'm fairly certain the problem is with the Toshiba laptop.

Alun · 04-01-2010 03:29PM

When you reinstalled XP did you install a minimum of SP2 (preferebly SP3)? IIRC there were some changes in the handling of wireless connections in SP2 specifically to do with WPA.

joker77 · 04-01-2010 03:33PM

Alun wrote: »

When you reinstalled XP did you install a minimum of SP2 (preferebly SP3)? IIRC there were some changes in the handling of wireless connections in SP2 specifically to do with WPA.

Cheers - yea I have an XP SP2 Cd which I installed from. After a couple of reinstalls, it just would not connect to the wireless network when upgraded to SP3... not a clue as to why. After installing with SP2 and then using Windows update to apply all the updates except SP3, it works fine.

4Sheets · 04-01-2010 09:23PM

Are u sure the router is a DHCP server..try a static address in TCP/IP settings

joker77 · 04-01-2010 09:43PM

4Sheets wrote: »

Are u sure the router is a DHCP server..try a static address in TCP/IP settings

Positive. As I already said - another laptop, my mobile phone, and anyone's iPods who call to the house have no problem connecting to the network. The laptop with the problem is fine connecting with XP SP2, but twice I upgraded to SP3 and then couldn't connect. I left it at SP2, that's good enough, not wasting any more time trouble-shooting.

layke · 04-01-2010 11:44PM

Are you using 3rd party software? Perhaps from the vendor of your workstation/laptop?

If so, disable it and use the built in windows controller. You can also try restarting the wireless service it's called 'wireless zero configuration' in services.msc although I doubt it will help.

Also when you say 'connect' can you actually see the network?

joker77 · 05-01-2010 10:06AM

layke wrote: »

Are you using 3rd party software? Perhaps from the vendor of your workstation/laptop?

I've rebuilt the laptop 3 times, using only the Toshiba supplied drivers.

layke wrote: »

Also when you say 'connect' can you actually see the network?

Yes, it could see the wireless network, but just stayed at the 'Acquiring network address' step.

As I say, this only happened with SP3 of Windows (tried it once, spent a while trouble-shooting, rebuilt, same problem, rebuilt and left it at SP2 with all the Windows updates except SP3, no problem).

I don't have the laptop any more, have given it back to my friend.

Laptop sticks at 'Waiting for network to be ready' step

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