T43 and Windows 7 Networking

[HarrisonH]

I've got a bit of a problem with networking in Windows 7 on my T43.

For some reason, all connctions (wired and wireless) are no longer able to connect.

When I first installed 7, wired connected fine. One day after restarting, it would no longer connect, and diagnostics were stating that there was a problem with the router. Restarting the router did nothing to fix it. I tried removing the drivers and restarting, but no change.

Recently I finally was able to test out wireless. I first got wireless working by using the XP drivers for the Intel 2200BG wireless, and it was working fine last night. This morning I wake up, and it acts like the wired connection did, stating that there was a problem with the router. Restart the router, and nothing changed. It also refused to connect to the few open networks in range. Again, I've tried uninstalling the drivers and restarting, but to no avail.

Has anyone had this problem before?

EDIT: ... and now it's started working again. I have no idea.

[Harryc]

Do any other wireless devices (or wired) work with this router? Any devices in the area running on the 2.4Ghz band that might introduce interference? Like a cordless phone?

[HarrisonH]

Do any other wireless devices (or wired) work with this router? Any devices in the area running on the 2.4Ghz band that might introduce interference? Like a cordless phone?

Another laptop was connected wirelessly fine, as did my Kindle. Two other desktops were connected wired with no problem.

The cordless phone in the house runs on the 1.9Ghz band, and wasn't in use when the problem occurred.

I suppose I should add that the wired problem was on a completely different network than the wireless one.

Ever since it reconnected earlier, it's been doing fine. Maybe it was just a freak occurrence, but since it had done the same thing before with the wired connection made me worry.

[GomJabbar]

Sometimes you need to reboot the router and/or the computers connected to it. This clears all previously assigned IP addresses to your connected devices.

As I understand it, the following scenario sometimes plays out: If you connect a computer to the router, then later disconnect it, then connect a different computer to the router, that computer may use what was the first computer's IP address. When you try to reconnect the original computer it is expecting to connect using the same IP address as before, but cannot because there is another computer now using it.

EDIT: Actually you can clear the IP addresses used by the computer without rebooting by doing the following: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_re ... ip_address

[ozzymud]

For home networks, If your router supports it, you can use static DHCP. This is really nice as all machines/devices get the same IP address always.

This uses the machines MAC address from the NIC to assign IP's... that way even in a multi boot situation (Like Windows <--> Linux), the machine gets the same IP even after a quick reboot. Or when coming out of hibernation/sleep/suspend.

Eliminates a lot of hassle with the above described issue. Comes in handy for other things as well, like remote connection thru VNC, you can assign ports that point to each machine individually... 5900 --> 192.168.0.10, 5901 --> 192.168.0.20, etc etc... then using dynamic dns you can always connect to a certain machine when away from the house.

There are many other good reasons to use Static DHCP (or just plain static addresses) over Dynamic address assignments.